


Paint a New Horizon

by sunkelles



Series: Modern Westeros [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Joffrey Baratheon is His Own Warning, Lesbian Margaery Tyrell, Minor Joffrey Baratheon/Sansa Stark, Modern Westeros, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Past Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark, Physical Abuse, The Jonas Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 07:27:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20060248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: Sansa is a painter. The moment that she meets Joffrey he becomes her muse. After they get married she starts to see his true colors unfold in front of her and she loses her passion. Then she meets Margaery. Her presence changes everything, and reignites a passion for painting and for life that Sansa thought was long buried. It’s too bad that leaving Joffrey isn’t an easy task.





	Paint a New Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. holy shit this thing ended up being LONG. this is by far the longest oneshot that i've ever written. like, i'm glad because i'm pretty pleased with the thing, but it is LOOOONNNGGGG  
2\. this involves show appearances and that weird book-show blending that happens whenever you want to write sansaery. make of that what you will  
3\. i'm not actually a painter, i just happened to think that would be cool for sansa and then it just kind of spiraled from there. if i made any like, logistical errors sorry my friends.  
4\. warning for physical and emotional abuse and use of misogynist and homophobic slurs by the joff-fuck

When Sansa was little, her family traveled to the Stormlands to visit her father’s best friend Robert Baratheon. While the noble houses of Westeros hadn’t “ruled” for centuries, they had stayed rich and powerful, and Robert was the holder of Storm’s End castle, the title of Lord of Storm’s End, and the lord (in title at least) of all the Stormlands. Sansa didn’t like him much, but she liked the property and the titles that he held a lot. 

The Baratheons had a mansion on their vast family lands situated near the sea and near the original castle of Storm’s End. The Storm Kings used to rule from it, and the Baratheons of old held the castle afterwards, including the time period where they held the Iron Throne. 

Sansa was descended from kings, too, but a lot less closely. They were so distantly related to the current Starks who held the castle of Winterfell that it barely meant anything. They were just sixth cousins or so. But Robert Baratheon? He was a true lord, and his children would inherit that. Sansa had to admit that was appealing. 

The whole group of them made their way towards Storm’s End, Arya demanding that they couldn’t go somewhere with a castle and not see it. Robb had backed her up quickly, and Jon had never not gone along with a scheme his older cousin-brother came up with. Their foster brother, Theon Joy, had come on board then too. He didn’t like Jon much, but Theon seemed to think Robb was the coolest person the planet. Bran was six, then, but he was already a better climber than any of the rest of them and followed along with no difficulty. Joffrey and Myrcella came, but Joffrey mocked Tommen when he tried to tag along. Joffrey said that Tommen would slow them down, and Sansa had to agree. The boy was Bran’s age, but there was no way that he climbed like Bran did and they needed to climb to get into Storm’s End. It was best that way. 

They scraped their knees and dug stones into their hands as they climbed, but it was worth it. The others fought with sticks, playing “Come into My Castle” just like the kids did back in the feudal days. Sansa stood at the top, princess of the rock, and surveyed her territory. She embedded the view deep in her memory, and swore that she’d paint the swirling seas, the stormy grey skies, and the jagged rocks at the bottom. She planned to paint that view the moment that she got home and got a brush in her hand. She liked the view. It made her feel like a queen, a real one. She liked Storm’s End, and most of all: she liked being at the top. 

She liked playing the princess that the rest of them fought over. It was her siblings except Rickon versus Joffrey. Joffrey fought like a raging storm, with lightning fast blows and the fierceness of a swirling wind. He beat off each of them, one by one, each Stark getting battered and bruised until they didn’t want to make anymore. Bran even cried.

It made something unpleasant pool in Sansa’s stomach as Robb and Jon yelled at Joffrey for being so hard on a kid so much younger than him. Joffrey rolled his eyes then and said that if Bran didn’t want to get hurt then he shouldn’t have played with the big kids. Joffrey said that shouldn’t be expected to coddle the kid because Joffrey was strong and Bran was weak. 

Sansa had found it charming: a true, strong knight like the tales of old. 

“My queen,” Joffrey said, kissing her hand. Sansa’s heart had fluttered as the sea sputtered violently. That was the moment that she decided she was going to marry him. 

* * *

Through the years, they kept in touch. Texts. Snaps. Facetime. Sansa sent him paintings of Storm’s End and interpretations that she did of him as a knight of old. They tagged each other in sappy Instagram posts about how they missed each other. Somehow, they became the country’s favorite couple. 

“Are we a couple?” Sansa asked one day in a snap. Joffrey set her a shrugging emoji.

“If you want to be,” he said. Sansa texted him a heart eyes emoji. 

“Yes!” 

“Alright.” It still made her heart flutter. She had a boyfriend, a beautiful one with wealthy parents who was first in line to a Baratheon fortune, a Lannister company, a title, and a _castle_. She was as close as she was ever going to get to becoming a princess, considering the Iron Throne was melted down years ago when the kingdoms splintered apart after The Dragon Queen’s failed conquest.

* * *

Painting was Sansa’s thing. She started painting as a toddler, smearing fingerpaints all over pieces of paper that barely counted for canvases. As she got older, her parents bought her whatever she required to create her art- canvases and different types of paint in every shade. She painted local landscapes as they would look through a whimsical looking glass and loved ones as knights and ladies. She painted Jon with silver armor and with the winter roses his mother loved so much seeming to grow out of his hair. She painted mother in a deep blue gown with black fish scales creeping out of the back, just like her maiden name- Blackfish. She painted snow clouds in the background of her father’s in the shape of the old family sword that hangs above the fireplace. 

When she got to high school and found that she couldn’t paint at home with so many distractions (Robb and Theon always blaring some kind of violent video game, Arya’s pack of friends all hanging off the living room furniture and shouting at the TV) and her mother turned the extra office space in the two office building she’d bought to house her legal practice into a studio space for Sansa to paint in whenever she needed alone time. Sansa spent far more time there than she did at home by the time she was able to drive, painting away and avoiding her family.

Sansa was a painter because she had _vision. _The world wasn’t as beautiful as it could be, not really, but she painted a world that she wanted to see. Surreal and beautiful. 

Before they went to Storm’s End, Sansa painted pictures of the castle of Winterfell and other iconic landmarks in the city. She painted the old statue of her namesake, Sansa I, Queen in the North that was downtown. Sometimes, she painted her father or brothers or Arya as knights of old.

_After _Storm’s End, she started painting pictures of the castle, the Baratheon mansion, the statues of Sweet Queen Shireen and Gendry the Smith in downtown Stormsville and the Baratheon deer statues littered throughout the city. She painted his scenery exactly, instead of her more abstract and whimsical work that she did of her family and homeland. Mostly, though, she would paint Joffrey as the knight she used to paint her family members as. Nothing but Joffrey, over and over and over again. A beautiful, golden knight in shining armor- a true prince of old. It was everything Sansa ever wanted. She thought that was realistic, too.

When she decided that she wanted to study art at college, her parents were excited by the prospect if only because it might reignite her passion for painting anything but Joffrey. She painted the Sept of Baelor and the Red Keep and all the most iconic buildings in downtown King’s Landing. Then she put the paintings up in her bedroom. Her parents were just thrilled that it was neither Joffrey nor Storm’s End. At least it showed that she was branching out again.

Sansa told her parents that she wanted to go to King’s College in King’s Landing because they had the best art program that she could get into. She shredded her letters from the Citadel and the Institute of Art in Braavos and Fallen Star University in Dorne. In turn, her parents suggested that she accept the offer from White Harbor University, The University of the Rills, or Oldstones University. Any of those had about the same level of prestige and would be a little bit closer to home. But Sansa wanted to go to King’s College because King’s Landing was the biggest and grandest city in all of Westeros, but mostly because Joffrey was going there. She had wanted to be with Joffrey. 

Sansa went to King’s College, and so did Joffrey. They dated. They posted pretty pictures to Instagram. They had fun and they kissed and they had sex, and Sansa felt like she was in heaven. She spent all her time with him or thinking about him. She didn’t make friends, not really. She just hung out with people associated with Joffrey. Boys who fawned over him and their girlfriends who tried to talk to her because of Joffrey. Sansa accepted their presence. They were fun enough to be around, and Joffrey liked them. Just as long as Joffrey was happy, Sansa thought that she was happy too.

_He’s perfect, _she thought. He even came to her art show, and when he complimented her work he smiled at her. 

“I think I’d like to take a piece home,” he told her. 

“I’m sorry, Joff, but none of my art is for sale.” Joffrey grinned then, a big, bright smile, and ripped out a little velvet box. Then, he got down on one knee. 

“Can I take _you _home, my lady?” he asked. Sansa started giggling. She nodded her head, and then she let him slip the ring onto her finger. Joffrey’s best friend recorded every second of it and posted it to Joffrey’s Instagram before she could even call her parents.

Sansa’s phone had blown up by the time that she got home. She had about six concerned texts from Robb, four from Jon, three from both Bran and Arya, and two from Rickon. There were seven missed calls from her mother and one from her father. There was even a text from _Theon_. She and her foster brother had never held a proper conversation before in their lives. 

“You really want to marry that asshole?” he’d asked. Sansa had half a mind to shoot something back at Theon about how Joffrey was refined while Theon was just a savage raised by Ironborn criminals who her parents were kind enough to foster, but she refrained. Instead, she just ignored the whole lot of them. She knew that if she could just talk to her mother, the rest of the family (and Theon) would have the information within ten minutes of her mother setting down the phone. It was the best way to solve the problem, so Sansa picked up the phone and dialed her mother’s number. 

“Sansa,” her mother said, “thank the Seven you’ve called.” 

“Did you just stop at seven for the god?” Sansa said, “one call for each face?” 

“What do you mean?” her mother asked. 

“You called seven times, mom,” Sansa said. 

“Oh,” her mother said, giggling into her side of the phone, “I didn’t know. All seven of the calls were for _the Mother_, I suppose. It’s the Mother’s job to talk her children out of bad ideas.” Sansa felt angry, then. 

“Well, this call is for _the Maiden_, mother,” Sansa said, “I’m a girl in love. I want to wed the boy I love. Where’s the bad idea in that?” Sansa’s own mother was not pleased, to say the least. 

“Sansa,” her mother said, “you’re so young. You don’t know what you want.” 

“I’ve liked Joffrey since I was eight, mom,” Sansa says, “I know exactly what I want.” Sansa was nine and ten; she didn’t think of herself as a child. 

“Sansa, I don’t think you’ve ever really known that boy.” But Sansa knew everything that she needed to know about Joffrey. She knew that he fought off all her siblings back at Storm’s End to crown her queen of the castle. She knew that he loved her paintings and he invited her to all his jousts and he always crowned her queen of love and beauty. She knew that he proudly posted pictures of the two of them all over his Instagram, and he kissed her with a sweet softness to her hand and a searing passion to her lips. She knew that he was beautiful and smart and charming, and that he said that he loved her. Sansa was nine and ten, and that was all she wanted. 

“I know him well enough,” Sansa said, “come _on_ mom, I’m nine and ten! That’s almost as old as you and dad were when you got married!” Her parents wed right out of undergrad. That can’t be all that different than right after freshman year. They already knew they didn’t want to marry anyone but each other by her age. 

“Sansa,” her mother said, “I remember how that boy beat up your siblings back at Storm’s End. I see how he uses you as a prop on his Instagram. I don’t trust him.” 

“He did those things because he loves me,” Sansa said firmly. She thought that Joffrey had needed to destroy her siblings to give her the castle. He showed her off online because he was proud of her. In Sansa’s mind, there was nothing more and nothing less. 

“Sansa, I don’t trust your judgement when it comes to him. You’re always painting him as some kind of knight-” 

“Mom,” Sansa said, “I’m not stupid. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid.” 

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Sansa. You’re a very smart girl. I just don’t want you to get hurt,” her mother said, “none of us do.”  
  
“And I won’t,” Sansa said firmly, “I know what I’m doing.” Her mother sighed. 

“I’m passing the phone to your father,” she said. Sansa fielded the same questions from her father, shrugged them off just as easily, and played the best friend card as hard as she could. _Robert will be my good father, wouldn’t you like that, dad?_ They both gave in, eventually, and they let her plan her wedding. Her family had never been able to talk her out of much of anything.

Six months later, Sansa and Joffrey had wed in the sept on the Storm’s End property. Robert blubbered drunkenly about finally becoming her father’s brother. Her father walked her down the aisle and then slipped into the bride’s pew with mother and her brothers.

Arya was her maid of honor and Myrcella and Beth Cassel were her bridesmaids. She wished that Jeyne were there, but Jeyne’s parents both died a few years before and she had to move far away. They’d lost touch, after that. Joffrey had three friends Sansa never cared for much as his groomsmen, but it didn’t matter much to her. His less than savory friends didn’t make Joffrey any less perfect in her eyes.

Tommen asked to play the flower girl (boy) so that he could throw petals through the aisles. Tywin stood off to the side and nodded approvingly. Cersei looked ready to tear Sansa’s eyes out. Tyrion and Jaime both just looked sad. Sansa tried to ignore them. She wouldn’t think about any of that unpleasantness. Her wedding day was her big day. It was supposed to be everything that she’d ever longed for, and she wasn’t about to worry about a red flag or two.

They said the words, she and Joffrey kissed, and then she became Sansa Baratheon. 

Holy shit. _Sansa Baratheon. _No longer Sansa Stark, sixth or so cousin of the Starks of Winterfell. Sansa Baratheon of the Storm’s End Baratheons. There’d never been a Sansa Baratheon before, she thought. There’d been plenty of Sansa Starks after the Queen in the North, but no Sansa Baratheons. It was fun to be the first.

The dance was wonderful, and then she thought that the bedding was fantastic- even if Joffrey was a little rougher than usual.

They honeymooned together down in Sunspear, soaking up the heat and posting beautiful pictures to their Instagrams. “Ours is the Beachtime” Joffrey captioned their picture together on the beach. It was a picture of them smiling as he pecked her on the cheek. “Unbowed. Unbent. Not Unsunburned” Sansa captioned a selfie she took where her skin was as red as her hair. 

They were the rich, noble youth. They were the Instagram influencers. They were who everyone else wanted to be. Sure, Sansa was fielding calls from all her siblings (Jon included), assuring them that Joffrey wasn’t the boy he was when they first met him, but it was not too hard. She just got snipier and snipier until eventually her siblings stopped calling and left that job to her parents. 

Then they went back for another year of college. Semester, actually. Joffrey’s grandfather said, after that, there was not anything that business college could teach Joffrey that he couldn’t learn on the job at Lanniscorp. Joffrey went to work, then, and dragged Sansa to all his company functions. Charity banquets and galas, Lannisport company functions, and company events hosted by their allies. 

Joffrey frequently left her alone at a table surrounded by strangers. This time, he had gone to get drinks with his friends, and he and his friends left with the car. Sansa was left staring at her phone and considering her options as to how to get home. Someone sat down beside her in Joffrey’s empty seat, and then when she glanced up she was met by the scared face of Sandor Clegane. Sansa wondered how he could have gotten burned as badly as he did, but she never dared to ask Joffrey how his grandfather’s associate ended up that way. Asking Joffrey about business never ended well for her. 

“Joffrey left, didn’t he?” Sandor asked. Sansa looked back down at her phone. 

“He did,” she admitted. 

“So that means you’re stuck here, doesn’t it? Bet he wasn’t considerate enough to leave the car.” Sansa bit her lip. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He paused. “Do you need a ride?” 

“I do _not_ need a ride,” Sansa said primly, “I can get an uber.” 

“One of the richest women in the city and you’re getting an uber?” Sandor laughed. “That’s sad, little bird. Your husband must not care for you a whit.” 

“Joffrey just needed to go with his friends,” Sansa said, “He knew I’d be fine.” She could ask Tywin or Cersei for a ride, surely, but she’d rather not. She’d rather die than ask either of them for a favor.

“Sure you are,” Sandor said. He slid his chair a little closer. Sansa slid hers a little farther away. Both chairs squeaked terribly, and she saw a few people send them weird looks from a few tables down. Sansa felt her face turn crimson.

“You don’t want a ride?” he asked, softer this time. More genuine. 

“I’m alright,” she said, “but thank you.” He nodded. Then, he looked around the room for a moment. Sansa thought that he wanted her to speak, but she wasn’t about to make small talk with him. 

“You wanna know how I got these scars?” he asked her. 

“Not particularly,” Sansa said, feeling a chill come up her back. Sandor leaned in close, and though she didn’t look up from her phone, playing a desperate game of 2048, she could see his long brown hair out of the corner of her eye. 

“My older brother shoved my face in the fireplace just to see what would happen. He liked to listen to me scream.” Sandor laughed, then, and it was a broken, hollow sound. Sansa clutched her phone tightly and shoved it back into her lap. Then she looked up at him. For the first time, she looked into his eyes. There was cruelty in them, yes, but there was terror there too. 

“I am sorry,” Sansa said, because there wasn’t much else that she could say. If that was true, it was terrible. And more importantly, there was nothing that she could do to fix it. 

“Your Joffrey reminds me of him, you know,” Sandor said, “he’s the sort of man who would shove your face in the fire just to watch it burn and listen to you scream.” Sansa couldn’t tell if it was a threat, then, but now she knows that it was a warning. Sandor Clegane was not the best of men, but he was not the worst either. 

“He’s not,” Sansa said firmly, “he’s a good man.” Sandor laughed at that and then he looked around the room, filled with the richest people in all of King’s Landing. 

“There are no good men.” He’d left her then, left her to mess around on her phone and get herself an uber. She got home later that night and curled up in bed and stared at the painting that she’d made of Storm’s End that Joffrey hung across from their bed so that he could look at it as he fell asleep. It was beautiful, but it was volatile. It cared little for those caught up in between the surf and the jagged rocks. 

Sansa closed her eyes and tried not to imagine getting caught up in the surf at Storm’s End or Joffrey shoving her face into a fireplace. 

Soon after that, Sansa found herself wondering if Sandor might be right. Joffrey came home frustrated because he was not as good at the business as he’d hoped, and he started to destroy things. 

Plates. 

Glasses. 

Mirrors. 

Her art projects. 

She held him by the shoulders and told him that everything would be alright, but he just screamed that she didn’t know what it was like to be berated by Tywin Lannister. She didn’t know what work was, because she was just an art student. He said that her studies were pointless and that she shouldn’t be wasting his money on those bullshit painting classes. 

After that, she ended up regretting passing up her parents’ offer to keep paying for her schooling. She let Joffrey do it instead, and this time when the bills came Joffrey didn’t pay them. Sansa didn’t get to go back to class that semester. He was just in a mood, she reasoned. Once he got out of his funk at work he would get over it and she would go back to school and things would be fine. 

The concerned call from her mother came soon enough. 

“You dropped out?” 

“You don’t actually need art school to make a career of it,” Sansa told her mother, “I’m better off just trying to make as much good art as possible and to get it in the galleries here.” Her mother said that she didn’t think that sounded reasonable, and that if Sansa ever needed help to just _call. _Sansa giggled, and just told her there was nothing to worry about. Joffrey walked in with a look like he was going to start breaking things, and she knew that being on the phone with her mother wouldn’t make things any better. 

He didn’t like it when she talked on the phone because he thought her voice was annoying when she did it. He didn’t like it when she talked to her family because they didn’t like him, and he didn’t like her talking about art school because it was a waste of money and she was never going back. He said that it always sounded like she was whining about it.

“It’s alright, mom,” Sansa promised her, “I’m fine. I just have to go. Joffrey and I have a banquet tonight. I get to dress up like a princess.” And she did, she _did. _No matter how angry Joffrey got, she still got to dress up and go to public functions and look like a princess. He was a Baratheon-Lannister. He had to have the prettiest arm candy in all the city on his arm. No matter how angry he got, he couldn’t take that away from her. 

“Yes,” her mother said sadly, “you do.”  
  
“Gottagoloveyou!” Sansa chirped. Then she hung up, and she exhaled a little easier. Joffrey didn’t even acknowledge the phone call. 

“Are you wearing _that _to the banquet?” he sneered. 

“No, Joff,” Sansa said, “these are my painting clothes. I’ll wear a dress tonight.” She was feeling nostalgic tonight and painting a picture of her mother. Her mother had a wolfskin draped over her shoulder like they always depicted Sansa I with. Her hair was styled in a single French braid down the center of her head, the tail hanging over the opposite shoulder from the wolfskin.

“I don’t know why you still bother painting.” 

“You used to say you liked my paintings,” Sansa said. The first present that she ever gave Joffrey was a painting that she did of Storm’s End while they were there. He said that it was beautiful. It was still up in their bedroom. Joffrey even had one of the paintings that she did of him as a knight up in his office at Lanniscorp. 

“I used to, but you don’t paint anything good anymore.” He grimaced at the look she made.

“You’re always so fucking fragile,” he muttered, and Sansa deflated even more. Maybe it _wasn’t_ any good?

“Just go get dressed,” he said, “and do something more than a single braid down the back with your hair. I won’t have my mother looking at you like you’re something Tommen’s cats dragged in.” Sansa glared, but she ran up and did her hair in an elegant crown braid at the top and let the waves fall down her back. She did soft, realistic makeup that would look good with her deep blue dress, and then she came downstairs.

Joffrey was wearing a simple black suit with a red tie, like always, and Sansa felt overdressed even though she knew that she wasn’t. Cersei would have torn her a new asshole at the event if she looked anything less than perfect. 

This time, Sansa and Joffrey were sitting at the same table as Tywin and Cersei. Somehow, frosty small talk turned to frostier work talk. Tywin apparently, had pinned all the company’s problems on Joffrey’s incompetence. 

“Maybe if Joffrey could do basic sums, this company wouldn’t be hemorrhaging money,” Tywin said, sending his grandson a cool look. 

“Maybe if you taught him better, then he wouldn’t be making these mistakes,” Sansa snipped. The entire table went silent. Cersei looked as though she might slit Sansa’s throat. Sansa was almost afraid to look over to Tywin, but then the man chuckled. 

“It _is _your husband’s fault, I assure you, but I appreciate that you defend him,” Tywin said with a ghost of a smile, “protectiveness and loyalty are good traits to have in a wife. He’s lucky.” Sansa nodded stiffly. She knew that she was being complimented, but she also felt condescended to. She had never known how to react to Tywin Lannister, and she certainly did not know how to react then. Joffrey, however, did not give her much time to react at all. 

“I need to speak to you for a moment,” Joffrey said, and he was smiling too widely for it to be genuine. When he grabbed her to drag her off, she could feel his fingernails digging into her forearm. He dragged her through the building until they came to a hallway that was dark. There wasn’t anyone in the area.

“Don’t embarrass me in front of my grandfather,” Joffrey hissed. He twitched his head to check for witnesses. Then, he drew his hand back. She saw the slap, then she heard the slap, then she felt the slap. She brought her hand immediately to her face, trying to quell the pain. 

“Joff,” she said, terror in her tone, “how could you?” He’d hit her before, once, but it hadn’t been in public. She’d dismissed it as something he’d only done because he was drunk- but he was sober when he hit her this time.

“You were being a bitch,” he said. 

“I can’t go back out like this,” Sansa said, eyes widening, “Joff- don’t you understand what you’ve just done?” He had _hit her. _They were in public and he hit her, right across the face, with no regard for appearances. Joffrey rolled her eyes. 

“You have powder in there, don’t you? Just cover it up.” Sansa felt her blood boil at the dismissive tone, but Joffrey left her immediately after that. She had to take care of it or deal with the consequences. She did not want to deal with the consequences. 

Sansa was thankful that she had always had a painter’s hand with her makeup. She made the coming bruise disappear as easily as a pimple. No one at the table noticed. If they did, no one said a word. Sansa was not sure whether or not that was a relief.

Her mother called the next day, but Sansa was too ashamed to pick up the phone. 

“I’m fine, mom,” Sansa texted, “just busy. I don’t want you to worry about me.” 

“Your father and I are always worried about you. It’s our job,” her mother texted back, and Sansa wanted to cry. She thought that they would hate what she’s let herself become. They told her not to move to King’s Landing, not to marry Joffrey. They told her that he seemed unworthy and that she shouldn’t quit school and that she shouldn’t base her whole life off a man. She couldn’t let them know how badly she had failed them.

She picked up the phone as little as possible and said even less. 

Joffrey would come home more and more often in a tizzy. He would destroy any painting she had started in one of his fits, ripping the canvas off and throwing it in the garbage. That, was, of course, on his better days. The worse days were the ones where instead of ripping into her art Joffrey would rip into her flesh. 

Sansa couldn’t go to the Godswood to pray to the old gods anymore, as there weren’t left in King’s landing. Sansa had felt cut off from them for as long as she’d lived in King’s Landing, but she’d never felt it so deeply as when she realized that she wanted to go pray but she couldn’t.

After a while, she started to feel farther and farther away from the Seven as well. Sansa didn’t ever make it to the sept for services, even though King’s Landing had the most beautiful septs in all of Westeros. She couldn’t even make it over for holiday services. She’d either be dragged off to some party of Joffrey’s or be too tired and distant to leave the house.

She painted less and less, until she didn’t paint at all. She found herself doing nothing most days, slipping into nothing. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. She wasn’t anyone at all. 

Sansa, for better or worse, was still beautiful. With her Instagram worthy makeup skills and her husband’s money, she was able to work up an ensemble that made her look like a princess and not a whipping girl. People ignored her except for their required small talk, just as they always had. She didn’t respond to comments on her Instagram, but she never had. She became a distant, cold beauty- frozen in stone like the statue of Sansa I in downtown Winterfell. She wondered, briefly, if she would ever see home again. Probably not. It would probably be better that way anyway. Her family wouldn’t want to see her like this.

No one wanted to see her, except, apparently, Margaery Tyrell.

There was some talk of a business deal between Margaery’s family business and Lannsicorp. Tyrell Industries was headed by Olenna Tyrell, a first cousin of the current Lord of Highgarden. That made Margaery a first cousin twice removed of the Lord of Highgarden. Sansa did not care much for noble blood anymore. She had been married to Joffrey too long to think that solved anything, but it was a noteworthy point. Margaery wasn’t as close to nobility as Joffrey’s family was, but she wasn’t as far removed as Sansa had been. It was an interesting point of middle ground.

Tywin and Olenna had left the table to go hash out some part of their business deal. Cersei was off in some corner drinking wine with Tambri Weathers. Sansa wasn’t sure if Joffrey was out on the dancefloor with another woman or if he was drinking somewhere with his friends. She didn’t care. She just took another swig of her pinot noir and kept staring at her phone. 

Margaery Tyrell had been sitting across the table from her, but she slid into the seat beside Sansa easily. Sansa wished that she would not have. 

“We didn’t really have a chance to talk earlier. I’m Margaery. I’ve been a fan of yours for years.” 

“You what?” Sansa asked. 

“I follow your art Instagram. I have for years,” Margaery said this as if it should have been obvious. 

“You like my paintings?” Sansa asked. She hadn’t heard anyone say they liked her paintings for months and months, even before she stopped painting them. 

“I love them,” Margarey said, with a zeal that could not be genuine. Sansa just nodded. It was better to just let the woman talk herself out. Sansa knew that she would segue into her future business deal with Joffrey soon. _Oh how it would be nice to be friends with a future business partner_, she would say, and _can’t you put in a good word for me with your husband?_ It was always the same with women like these. They were vapid and conniving, always seeking advancement through Sansa’s husband. They never saw Sansa as anything more than a beautiful airhead with influence over Joffrey. 

“You haven’t posted a painting in months, though. I’ve been missing them.” 

“Oh, you have?”  
  
“I have,” Margaery said simply. 

“What do you like _about_ them?” Sansa asked smoothly. 

“You think I’m just flattering you, don’t you?” Margaery said, and there was a hint of a smile on her lips. Sansa shrugged. She wasn’t going to deny that. 

“Alright then,” Margaery said, “I’m not a painter myself, but I’ll try to describe why I love your work.” Margaery pulled out her phone, and Sansa could tell that she was going to look up her account to take a quick glance before telling Sansa anything. Before Sansa could stop her hand, it had jolted forward to stop Margaery from doing so.

“Don’t cheat,” Sansa scolded. Margaery laughed. 

“Alright, alright,” Margaery said, holding up her hands in surrender, “we’ll do this from memory. My absolute favorite, I think, was that one you did of your mother as a lady of old. The color scheme was superb- that blue dress with her greying auburn hair? Those black fish scales for the background? And of course, her posture. She seemed stern, but kind. The kind of leader anyone would want.” Margaery looked contemplative for a moment.

“What were the fish scales symbolic of. Was it a Riverlands thing?” 

“Kind of,” Sansa said, “my mother’s maiden name was Blackfish.” Theirs was a family of merchants in the Riverlands, and they decided to take Brynden Tully’s title as their surname as an homage to the famous knight. Margaery nodded, but did not add anything to that thread of conversation.

“And then that one with the kraken arms coming out of the boy’s head was phenomenal,” Margaery said, “it had something to do with the Iron Islands, didn’t it?” Sansa just nodded in response. She did not want to discuss her brother’s infatuation with Theon Joy or the texts she had not yet responded to from mother and Robb about some kind of engagement and a wedding that she’d pretend she wouldn’t be able to attend. 

“Your work is very symbolic,” Margaery said, “most of the time, it seems to be saying something beyond just “this is pretty”.” 

“Really?” Sansa asked. Most of the time, she hadn’t strategized her paintings out. She’d spent her days imagining the most beautiful things that she could, and then she put them to the canvas. 

“Well, for one, there was the self-portrait that you did recently with the antlers impaling your skull and the blood dripping down your face.” 

“That wasn’t me,” Sansa denied, “the girl had blonde hair and green eyes.” The blood stained a lot of the blonde hair crimson, but even then, Sansa had not painted her own auburn locks. 

“Well, either way, those green eyes seemed symbolic. The greensight was always a famous Northern myth about seeing the future, perhaps you gave it to this girl to show that she could see the future but still could not avoid her fate?” Margaery touched her chin thoughtfully. 

“It’s sickeningly sad, when you analyze it,” Margaery said, “imaging that this girl saw her death coming, but couldn’t do anything to stop it.” Sansa thought about her family’s warnings that Joffrey was a bad kid, and she thought that there might be some truth to Margaery’s analysis of her work. She felt a bit of dread pool in her stomach at that. 

Maybe her work was more symbolic than she thought. A green-eyed girl impaled by Baratheon antlers- who should have been able to stop what was coming but never even tried. Now she was just dealing with the antlers stabbing into her and the blood running down her face. 

“Even when it’s sad, though, it’s beautiful. I feel like I’m being dragged into the scene and forced to look. Even the ones that are hard to look at are impossible to look away from because they’re so masterful. The colors, the brushstrokes, the emotions-” Margaery’s eyes light up a little. 

“The good ones make me want to leap into the painting and live there and the others are just this terrible sort of sublime that I can’t look away from, you know? It’s terrifying, but there’s a sort of beauty in the terror.” Sansa didn’t know what to say to that. She doesn’t know if she could say anything if she tried. Sansa had never heard someone who wasn’t obligated to like her work speak of it with such passion and attention to what it was. Margaery had even given her some new perspectives on her own work. 

This wasn’t a family member who had said her paintings were beautiful since she started making blobs with her fingers. This wasn’t Joffrey, who had apparently feigned his appreciation to get in her pants or only liked her work when she painted _him_. And it wasn’t one of her various art teachers who wanted to relive their glory days through a pupil- this was an outsider. While Margaery Tyrell might seek to flatter her, she did not have true incentive to come up with false, well-thought out reasons to love Sansa’s work. The praise she gave here was genuine, and Sansa did not know what to do with it. 

“Thank you, Ms. Tyrell,” Sansa said. 

“You’re welcome, _Ms_. Stark,” Margaery said. 

“My name isn’t Stark anymore; It’s Baratheon.” The words sounded hollow to her own ears. She wasn’t a Stark anymore, but she didn’t want to be a Baratheon either. Every time that someone called her that she felt like the girl she painted, the one pierced by antlers that she just couldn’t get out.

“Every time someone called you Baratheon tonight, you stiffened. I don’t think you like it much.” 

“Then just call me Sansa, please,” she said, “Joffrey wouldn’t like you calling me Stark.” She worried that her own family wouldn’t even want someone calling her Stark nowadays.

“I don’t think he’d like me calling you much at all. He’s got you locked away in this tower and doesn’t let anyone see you.”

“He doesn’t lock me away,” Sansa said. Joffrey had never said that she wasn’t allowed to go out with people. Sansa has just never had anyone to go out _with. _

“If your husband doesn’t lock you away, why don’t we go for dinner and drinks tomorrow night?” Margaery asked. Sansa knew that she should say no. Margaery worked for a company that Joffrey was trying to do business with. If Sansa embarrassed the family in front of her, the consequences would be dire. And Sansa didn’t know for sure that she _wasn’t_ locked in the tower. Joffrey had never liked her being on the phone with her family; what if he wanted her completely isolated? Sansa might not have done that all of that isolating herself accidentally. Some of it might have been a calculated move on his part.

But Margaery was sweet, and this conversation was the first time that Sansa felt alive in months.

“Alright,” Sansa agreed. Margaery took her phone and put her number in under about six golden rose emojis and then sent herself a text from Sansa’s phone. A heart emoji. 

“Don’t do that,” Sansa said, glancing across the room to make sure no one she didn’t want to hear was listening, “what if he saw that?” 

“If he reacts badly, that’s his problem,” Margaery says, “you’re just a girl sending a heart emoji to a friend. It’s not a big deal.” But Sansa hadn’t had anything to care about but Joffrey in years, and the boy didn’t even like her interacting with her family. Sansa feared that her isolation wasn’t totally self-imposed. 

“You’re right,” Sansa said, trying not to sound terrified, “that’s _his_ problem.” Margaery sent her a concerned look. 

“Sansa,” she said, keeping her voice as low as possible, “are you _afraid _of him?” Sansa giggled then, but it was panicky. 

“Afraid? Of Joffrey?” she laughed then, sounding just as panicked, “preposterous. My husband’s sweet as a kitten.” _As sweet as a kitten is to a mouse. _

“Sansa, if he’s hurting you-” 

“He’s not,” Sansa said firmly, “let’s just drop it, okay?” 

“Okay,” Margaery says. 

“And then we can talk about more pleasant things tomorrow,” Sansa asserted. 

“Of course,” Margaery agreed, “we’ll have a perfectly pleasant day tomorrow.

Sansa went home that night and she slept more soundly than she had in months. In the morning after Joffrey left for work, Sansa took a trip to the local art store, picked up the supplies that she wanted, and then she came home. 

Sansa painted. She painted a background with black fish scales, kraken arms, wolves, antlers, and winter roses. Margaery said that she loved the symbolism of her paintings- that she wanted to slip into her favorites, so Sansa painted the backgrounds that Margaery mentioned all melding together as though they were forming a wall. She left a single rectangle near the bottom of the canvas blank. Then, she painted Margaery Tyrell in her beautiful green dress with her curly, brown hair cascading down her shoulders and taking a cautious first step inside. 

“Sansa.” She turned around quickly from her canvas in the sitting room and saw Joffrey with his arms crossed and a glare on his face. 

“Hi Joff,” she managed. 

“You’re painting again,” Joffrey said flatly. 

“I am,” Sansa said, and for the first time in months she could feel a spring in her step. He walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder with a scrutinizing look. 

“It’s just a girl in the middle of a jumbled mess. What’s so special about that?” 

“Well,” Sansa said, not wanting to explain her reasoning, “there are some flowers.” The flowers were beautiful, but they were emotionally important to her too. She painted her Aunt Lyanna once for Jon’s birthday. Her father always said that Aunt Lyanna liked winter roses, so she painted the woman with a crown of winter roses from a photo that Jon kept on his bedside table. Jon and her father had almost both started crying when they saw it. 

“Flowers are beautiful,” Sansa said. Joffrey rolled his eyes. 

“Flowers are girly, and that painting is ugly and cluttered and doesn’t make any sense,” he said, “if you’re going to paint again, at least paint something nice to look at.” 

“Something like you?” Sansa asked. 

“You always liked painting me before, why wouldn’t you now?” Sansa bit her lip. She didn’t want to try to respond to that. 

“You could paint Storm’s End,” Joffrey said, “or Lannister Tower, maybe? I don’t know. Just something besides _flowers _and whatever the rest of that was_. _It’ll give the Tyrells a big head if they see all of those flowers. We haven’t even agreed to work with them yet.” 

“You haven’t?” 

“We haven’t.” Sansa turned back to her painting and starts putting away her supplies. Now that Joffrey was here, there was no way that she would get anything done before she left for dinner with Margaery. 

“Are the Tyrells not on board? If that’s the case, I could talk Margaery into it, probably.” 

“No, they presented the idea and we haven’t agreed.” Joffrey’s eyebrows furrowed.

“How would _you _get Margaery Tyrell to agree to a business proposal?” The conversation felt like a sparring match, and Sansa didn’t think it was one she could win.

“We’re going out to dinner and drinks today,” Sanas said evenly, “I could have talked to her about it.” 

“You’re going to dinner with Margaery Tyrell?” 

“Is that a shock?” Sansa asked, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

“You never go out with anyone.” 

“You’re out with your friends every other night,” Sansa said, “I can go out with Margaery just this once.” 

“Margaery Tyrell is a business competitor, not a little girl that you can braid your hair with.”

“I’m going,” Sansa said firmly. Joffrey grabbed her by the shoulders and she could see a hint of rage in his eyes. Not rage enough for him to start hitting yet, but rage enough her to be afraid. 

“You are_ not_ going.” 

“I am. What will she think if I cancel on her? She doesn’t _like_ you, Joff.” Joffrey glared. 

“And how would you know that?” 

“I can tell.” Joffrey looked ready to pop her like an overinflated balloon, and Sansa held her breath. He was going to strike her, she knew it. He hated that she had gone behind his back and that she had the audacity to interact with his possible business partners without him and tell him what to do and- 

“Fine. Go. But don’t tell her _anything_,” Joffrey hissed, and Sansa could feel his fingernails digging into her arm. Sansa jerked back and let out her own hiss in pain. Joffrey smiled his sadistic smile. 

“Are we clear?” he asked. 

“Crystal,” Sansa said. Joffrey let go of her arm then. 

“Don’t make plans with her again,” he told her. Then, he made his way upstairs. Sansa let out a sigh of relief. Then she took out her phone and looked down at the time was 6:55. Margaery would be here in five minutes to pick her up for their dinner and drinks excursion. Sansa was still in her paint shirt, an old black West Winterfell High Art Club shirt with dots of paint in all colors over it. Her painting jeans were a white wash that looked much the same, and her hair was up in a frizzy ponytail. 

Sansa hadn’t gone out of the house looking like this since fourth grade. Back in Winterfell when she was in fifth grade onward the reason she didn’t go out like this had been because Sansa always wanted to look cute for her social status. You can’t be the coolest girl in school if you don’t always look like the prettiest, most well-put together one after all. After she arrived in King’s Landing it was less of a thing that she did for herself and more of thing that she did to avoid Joffrey, Cersei, and Tywin’s ire. 

She should have gone upstairs and changed, but the thought of running into Joffrey in the bedroom and having to talk to him again before she went out made her ill. Instead, Sansa decided not to bother changing. It would be unlikely that anyone would connect the hot mess that she was at the moment with Sansa Baratheon, glamorous wife of Joffrey. She winced at the thought. She hated that that was all she was now.

The doorbell rang and Sansa rushed through the house to open it. She was breathless by the time that she got to the door and opened it for Margaery. Sansa was more breathless when she saw her. Margaery was wearing a flowing, floral printed blouse that hung in a low v over her breasts and a string of pink pearls that lead the eye down to her cleavage as well, as if the v itself hadn’t done that just fine.

“I am _so_ underdressed,” Sansa muttered frantically. She glanced back into the house.

“I should go- I should go change,” she said, ready to sprint back through the house and back up the stairs, Joffrey’s ire be damned. Margaery grabbed her softly by the arm, exactly where Joffrey always left his bruises. Sansa tried not to wince at the slight pain. Margaery let go immediately, somehow sensing that the action was making Sansa uncomfortable.

“No,” Margaery said, “I _love _it. You look like an artist.” 

“You mean I look messy,” Sansa said. 

“I mean that you look creative and hands-on. There’s more life to your look today than there was last night,” Margaery said. Sansa smiled at that. 

“Thank you,” she said, even though she was sure the woman was flattering her. Margaery gestured towards her car, a small Essosi model with bright green paint and a “Growing Strong” vanity plate on the front. Sansa slid into the passenger’s seat easily and sat down beside Margaery. 

“So,” Margaery said, turning over to her from the driver’s seat, “where would you like to eat? You _are _the local.” 

“I don’t know the city well,” Sansa said. Margaery frowned at that. 

“You don’t? How many years have you lived here?”

“Well, I moved right when I started freshman year of college,” Sansa said, “that was-” She does the math in her mind. She was eight and ten when she moved and she had recently turned three and twenty. Sansa wished that she was better at math. Arya was always the best person in the family at math, and Sansa was always the worst.

“Almost five years,” Sansa said with wide eyes. It had been five years that she’d lived here in King’s Landing. She’d only been back to Winterfell that one time in that whole period, for a few weeks before her wedding. 

“I guess I _have_ lived here a while, but I don’t tend to go out,” Sansa admitted. Margaery nodded then. 

“Alright,” Margaery said, taking out her phone, “let me see if I can find a cool artsy place up town.” A few minutes later, Margaery had the name of a place with great reviews plugged into her phone and they were cruising down the busiest street in the metro to downtown King’s Landing, screeching out the words to a boy band number that was popular when she was in fifth grade. 

By the time that they got to the restaurant, Sansa and Margaery were laughing harder than Sansa had in years.  
  
“How did you know that I love _The Florian Brothers_?” Sansa asked. She used to play them all the time when she painted, but Joffrey hated when she blared the group. Sansa didn’t play music in the house anymore.  
  
“Well, you’re a woman between the ages of eight and ten and six and twenty. The odds were in my favor,” Margaery grinned, “especially since they’re back now.” Sansa felt her eyes widen. 

“They’re _what?!?!” _she demanded. 

“They’re back,” Margaery said, “they’ve been back for months now. How did you not know?” Sansa felt dread creep up on her. She didn’t talk to much of anyone anymore. She didn’t watch TV, or even watch the make-up or art youtubers that she used to follow religiously. She’d post to her own personal Instagram often enough with pictures of her and Joffrey at galas and things, but she didn’t ever check her comments or the news. She even tried to ignore texts from her family. 

“I guess I just missed it,” Sansa said. She seemed to be missing a lot. 

“Well,” Margaery said, “I’ll just have to play their new album for you when we get back in the car.” Margaery led her into the restaurant, and they made pleasant small talk the whole way in. When they got there, Sansa realized that Margaery had good taste. The restaurant was nice, but a little hockey. She didn’t feel underdressed in the place because it was heavily themed: “Across the World”. Each of the rooms had decor based on a different region of Westeros or one of the other continents. 

Margaery requested a table in their Reach section.

“Wow,” Margaery said, looking at the walls coated in flower wall paper and flower paintings, “this is a little overkill.” Even their booth was coated in flower patterned fabric. Sansa giggled. 

“Does the Reach really look like this?” she teased. 

“Only in my grandmother’s bathroom,” Margaery said. Sansa giggled at that. 

“Oh, um,” Margaery said, looking down at her utensils for a moment, “speaking of my grandmother, she and I have a meeting with your husband and grandfather on Monday.” 

“Oh, okay,” Sansa said awkwardly. 

“I just wanted you to be aware, since we’re going to be friends.” Sansa nodded her head. 

“Yeah, okay.” That made sense. Margaery wanted her to be aware of her dealings with her husband. It made sense, even if Sansa would prefer to never think about Margaery and Joff in the same room if she didn’t have to. 

“There was, uh, this joke that my grandmother made about it. She said it would be like a double date, since she and Tywin are of an age and Joffrey and I are nearly so.” Sansa found herself feeling uncomfortable. It wasn’t a possessive thing, either. It was the thought of anyone else being subjected to Joffrey, especially Margaery. 

“You wouldn’t want him,” Sansa said. Margaery stifled a laugh. 

“I _know_,” Margaery said, “I told my grandmother it was in poor taste anyways.” 

“Because Joff’s married?” 

“Well, yes, and because I’m a _lesbian_,” Margaery said. 

“Oh,” Sansa said, face heating with a blush, “yeah, that’s not the best joke.” Margaery- a lesbian. 

“Are you alright?” Margaery asked, “your face is bright red.” Sansa went to grab her silverwear and started fiddling with it. 

“I- yes,” she shook her head, “of course. I’m just- that joke.” 

“I know,” Margaery said, “it was hideous. Your husband is a huge asshole and_ I _hate her making those jokes, but I’m sure you hate them more than I do. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” There was part of Sansa that wanted to defend Joffrey, because that was what she’d always done, but she didn’t give into the urge. She was learning that there was nothing to defend. Sansa shook her head no. 

“It’s alright,” Sansa said, and it was. It truly was. She felt all giggly now. Giggly and warm and excited. She could almost smell the fake flowers on the wall, their sweet, soft aroma filling her nostrils. Or- wait- that was Margaery’s perfume. Sweet and fresh and enticing. 

She dared a glance forward and met Margaery’s eyes- a deep, chocolate brown. They were warm and inviting and Margaery’s little curly bangs framed her face like a heart. Margaery’s head went over the back of the booth and it seemed to almost be floating against the flowery wallpaper. It looked like Margaery was lying out in a field of flowers- the Maiden gazing up at the clouds and trying to make shapes of them. 

She could imagine Margaery telling her that this one is a flower, like Tyrell, and this one’s a deer, like Baratheon, and this one’s a _dick_, like Joffrey. She giggled nervously again and felt her cheeks flush. She’d never felt this giddy and unsteady in her whole life. 

“Are you alright, Sansa?” Margaery asked cautiously. She reached across the table and laid a hand over Sansa’s own. The touch was warm and tender, and Sansa felt the blush from her toes to the tip of her head. 

“I’m perfect!” Sansa nearly screeched. Margaery laughed at that, but her look was kind. 

“Yes, darling,” she said with a smile that was wide and fond, “I think that you are.” 

Lesbian. The word wasn’t supposed to fill her with such a warm, hopeful feeling, was it? She wiggled awkwardly in her chair, trying to get situated and stop feeling so silly and excited and vulnerable, but it didn’t fix anything. She felt Margaery’s leg brush against hers under the table. It sent a jolt through her. 

_Lesbian_. 

Sansa took a shaky breath. She thought to herself that there might be something to that. 

* * *

Aside from Sansa’s awkward fumbling through the conversation, dinner was great. The Northern food made her feel like she’d taken a jaunt home, which both made her more and less homesick. Margaery told her funny childhood stories and about her favorite books and her college experience. She’d gotten a major in business with minors in agriculture and literature. Sansa told her childhood stories and about her favorite movies and her own short college experience. By the end of it, they’d stayed at the table talking so long that the restaurant was ready to close. They each left a sizable tip that hopefully made up for the waitress not getting any additional customers at that table all night. 

They listened to the new _The Florian Brothers _album on their way to the bar, and then they talked about boy bands and girl bands and old teen idols as Margaery carefully drank one strawberry daiquiri and Sansa had three Lemon Drop Cocktails. 

“I’ll text you,” Margaery promised. Sansa stumbled inside. Joffrey looked angry when she got into their room, but he was always angry. He was watching some youtuber make fun of another youtuber, and Sansa slipped into bed beside him. She slipped her earplugs in and tried to drift off to sleep. 

“Goodnight, Sansa,” he said. She was surprised. She thought that if he would have talked tonight, it wouldn’t be something kind. It was almost never something kind.  
  
“Goodnight, Joff.” 

When Sansa woke up the next morning, Joffrey was already off to a host of work meetings, which Sansa appreciated. It meant that she had the house to herself. She nearly leaped down the stairs, made herself a cup of coffee, and ate a bowl of cereal. Margaery Tyrell lit up her thoughts like a shining sun. Her presence changed everything. Sansa needed to paint. She was like a woman consume as she took out her tools and set to work.

She painted Margaery lying in a bed of golden roses, brown curly hair poofing out around her like petals around a flowerhead. Sansa made sure that Margaery looked like she was in the middle of a laugh, looking up at the sky as if they were sharing a great joke. That was a look that she’d gotten to know well last night. She always wanted to remember it. 

Sansa painted all day, only leaving her canvas for food and pee breaks, and by the time that Joffrey got home that evening she had scarcely realized that time had passed at all. 

Joffrey came up behind her and sent her a scrutinizing look. 

“Well,” he said, “it’s not as terrible as yesterday’s. At least it looks like something.” Coming from Joffrey, that was high praise. 

“Thank you, Joff,” she said. 

“If you wanted to paint another knight, mother said that she liked the one you did of me. She would like one of herself,” Joffrey said. Coming from Cersei, that was high praise. However, the idea of painting Cersei Lannister as a knight in shining armor turned her stomach. Cersei certainly wasn’t what Sansa thought a knight should be. 

She wondered, briefly, if _anyone_ was what she thought a knight should be. 

“Maybe next time,” Sansa said. Joffrey nodded, and then he started upstairs. He would probably be getting the day of business out of his system by assaulting the punching bag or listening to some youtuber eviscerate another one. Sansa let out a breath. 

She couldn’t keep painting out in the open. Joffrey hadn’t gotten angry yet, but Sansa knew that if she kept painting the things that she was imagining- Margaery nestled in beds of roses, Margaery’s smiles turning into flower petals, Margaery with hair _made_ of flower petals- he might. Joffrey was a vain man, and he wanted all her paintings to be of him. Storm’s End was him, his mother was him- in some ways, Sansa herself was him. All of those topics would be acceptable, but Margaery- he didn’t own Margaery, which meant that he didn’t own Sansa’s thoughts- Sansa’s time. He wouldn’t have that, and Sansa didn’t think she could live if she couldn’t paint what she wanted. 

The next few days when she painted. she did it in the laundry room. Joffrey had never actually entered the laundry room, since she had done his laundry since before they were even married. Her paintings would be safe in there; she knew it. She painted to her heart’s content in the tiny little laundry room and shoved the finished products in the dryer half an hour before she knew that he would arrive.

She laid down on the couch and played 2048 for the thousandth time, and Joffrey looked surprised to see her in the familiar position.

“No painting today?” 

“No painting today.” 

“Pity,” Joffrey said, “you could have at least made a few decent ones again before the urge wore off. I wanted an upgrade for the office.” 

“Pity,” Sansa said, the image of Margaery’s smiling, painted face still vivid in her mind. 

“Whatever,” Joffrey said, plopping down beside her on the couch. 

“How was the night with Margaery? Terrible, I’d imagine.” 

“You’re just saying that because she doesn’t like you,” Sansa said. 

“And I don’t like _her_ either. I think she’s a conniving little bitch. She’s using you to get to me, you know. She thinks it’ll get Lanniscorp to give in and invest in their project.” Sansa has had that same fear herself, but she doesn’t let Joffrey know that. 

“She’s not,” Sansa said. Joffrey rolled his eyes. 

“Don’t be an idiot, Sansa.” Then a cruel smile settled on his face. 

“I know that’s hard for you, but you have to try, at least.”

Sansa glared and said, “I won’t get suckered into helping her with any business deal. You know I can’t talk you into anything anyways. Getting to you through me is futile.” Joffrey doesn’t think of her as anything but his. He smiles at her then. 

“You’re right,” he said, wrapping an arm over her shoulder, “I’m a stubborn buck.” He always used to say that when Sansa couldn’t convince him of something or he was pressuring her into something. He’d call himself a stubborn buck when he got her to open up her legs on nights that she just wanted to go the fuck to sleep. She used to find it charming. She doesn’t any more. 

“But just because you can’t get me to do anything that doesn’t mean I want you anywhere near that dyke,” he said. Sansa felt something awful settle in her stomach. It felt as toxic as what she had felt with Margaery felt wonderful. 

“You think she-” 

“Likes you? Duh,” he said, “you might be a bit of an idiot, but you are a gorgeous one. Get the business deal, sleep with the pretty girl, cuckhold a man she hates- it’s a selfish twit like her’s dream.” Sansa can feel her breathing speeding up as panic spreads over her. He pulls her into a hug and starts playing softly with her hair. 

“Shh, sweetling,” he said, “I don’t blame you. You were too stupid to see what you were doing. As long as you don’t see her again, then it will be alright. She won’t be able to hurt you.” _I won’t hurt you_ is left unsaid. 

“Just don’t see her again,” he said. She shouldn’t have argued. Joffrey had made up his mind. 

“But-” 

“Don’t see her again,” he repeated, squeezing his arms so tightly around her neck that it felt like he would pop her head off her shoulders like a toy rocket.

“Okay,” Sansa said. Then Joffrey released her from his death grip and hug. He took her hands in his and looked into her eyes. 

“See, things are just fine when we’re all reasonable, aren’t they?” 

“Yes,” Sansa said hollowly, “just fine.” 

“Don’t be like that,” he said, “smile, or something.” Sansa plastered on one that she hoped didn’t look too unnatural. 

“It's fine,” Sansa repeated. There was nothing else to do. 

“Don’t be like that. I love you, you know,” he said, “I won’t lose you.” Sansa nodded, but she still felt terror creeping into her veins. What would Joffrey do if he found the paintings? If he saw the texts that she and Margaery had been sending back and forth- if he found out about how she’d felt when she found out Margaery was a lesbian? Sansa pushed the thought away and refused to acknowledge it. For the rest of the night, she let Joffrey do exactly what he wanted, afraid of what would happen if she did anything else. 

  
The next morning after Joffrey had left for work, Sansa finally had a moment to breathe.

A text illuminated her screen from Margaery, “when would you like to hang out again?”

Sansa took a deep breath, and sent back “now?” 

“Be there in 30,” Margaery texted. Margaery got there soon enough and they had a fantastic time hanging out. That was, until Sansa saw that she only had about an hour until Joffrey would get home. 

“Shit,” Sansa said, “I have to leave now.” 

“What do you mean?” Margaery asked, looking up from her half-finished dinner, “you never mentioned that you had a deadline.” 

“I didn’t expect to forget about it. Joffrey’s going to be home in less than an hour and it’s a half hour drive back to my house,” Sansa said, her eyes wide as moons

“He doesn’t know that you’re with me,” Margaery said, and Sansa could see the eureka in her eyes. 

“He told me that I couldn’t see you anymore,” Sansa said, “please, I have to go now.” Margaery nodded. She ripped her wallet out of her purse and shoved a hundred-dollar bill on the table. 

“Our tab was only going to be about a third of that,” Sansa said. 

“We don’t have time to send for the waitress and she’ll be terrified that we dashed when she sees the empty table.” Margaery shoved her wallet back in her purse and started speed walking towards the door. Sansa could barely keep up with her.

“I can manage a sixty-dollar tip with what I make if it’ll help you and the waitress.” Sansa felt warm inside as they made their way to the car. Margaery started the car the moment that she got into it and didn’t even bother setting up her music like she did last time before hitting the gas. She sped the entire way over to Sansa and Joffrey’s place, and then parked quickly. 

“Here’s your stop,” Margaery said, unlocking the doors and rolling down the windows. 

“Thank you so, so, so much,” Sansa said, opening hers up and slamming it behind her. “And I am so sorry for this inconvenience.” 

“Sansa, it’s no big deal. Just let me know when we need to have you home next time.” Sansa nodded stiffly. 

“Thank you,” she said. Then she spotted the time on Margaery’s dashboard.

“He’ll be here soon,” she said. There was only ten minutes before Joffrey normally showed up. 

“I’d better go,” Margaery said. She didn’t even bother to roll up her windows before she hit the gas and sped out of the neighborhood. Thank the old gods and the new that Margaery had a sports car. If the woman went over the limit, which Sansa had no doubt she would, her distinctive green car would be completely out of the suburb before Joffrey even got into the neighborhood. Joffrey was home twenty minutes after that, but Sansa was playing 2048 on her phone, just like always. If he suspected that anything happened, he didn’t say anything. 

He was out of the house an hour afterwards to go hang out with his friends, and Sansa breathed a little easier as she crawled into bed and fell asleep.

They were more careful, after that. The next time that Sansa went out, she told Margaery the exact time that Joffrey would get home and they scheduled a whole hour cushion. They set an alarm on each of their phones for when they needed to get ready to leave. 

“Alright,” Margaery said, putting her elbows on the table and leaning her chin onto her knuckles, “so. He who shall not be named can’t know that we see each other.” Sansa nodded. 

“If he knew that we were here together, would he,” Margaery took a deep breath. “Would he hurt you?” The concern in her voice was palpable. Well. It was no use lying at that point. 

“Yes,” Sansa said. Margaery lifted her first finger up to her lips and bit down lightly on the nail for a moment as she processed that. 

“Shit, Sansa, I knew the guy was an asshole, but I didn’t-” Margaery sighed. “I only _suspected _it might be this bad. I didn’t _want _it to be true.” Sansa shook her head. 

“No one wants something like this to be true,” Sansa said, “I didn’t even really believe it for a long time. I just, I thought that it was a onetime thing. That he was just mad, or when things got better at work it would fix itself or something.” Sansa put her head into her hands and started rubbing her eyebrows. 

“Maybe it was my fault, somehow. If I’d kept him happy, then he wouldn’t have been like this.”

“Sansa-” 

“I know that’s not true, now,” Sansa said, “but I used to feel that way, back when it started.” Sansa sighed as she dropped her head into her hands. 

“Now I just think it’s my fault for different reasons.” Sansa dug her fingernails into her eyebrows, massaging them gently. 

“What reason could it possibly be your fault?” Margaery asked softly. Sansa felt the guilt crushing her like the weight of the world’s architecture was always crushing the Smith.

“Maybe if I’d listened to my family then I wouldn’t be here,” Sansa said, “I don’t know, maybe if I hadn’t been so blinded by the fact that I wanted to be anywhere but Winterfell- if I hadn’t thought that anywhere and anyone was better than home and my family I wouldn’t be here.” She could barely force the last words out. 

She whispered, “Maybe if I hadn’t pushed them away, at least, I’d feel like I could ask them for help.” She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, but it didn’t work. Sansa just felt like a frayed, guilty, embarrassed mess. She was salutatorian of her graduating class. She had gotten into _the Citadel, _the most prestigious and storied university in all of Westeros. How had she fallen so far that she became Joffrey Baratheon’s pitiful, battered wife? 

“Sansa, none of this is your fault,” Margaery said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, “from what I’ve heard about your family, I don’t think they’d blame you either.” Sansa adjusted her head and moved to resting her chin on her hands, looking Margaery in the eyes. 

“My family all _told _me not to date him. Then they told me not to marry him. Then they told me they were worried about me. How stupid could I have been?” She could feel the tears pooling her eyes, threatening to seep through. 

“Sansa,” Margaery said softly, “look at me.” Sansa lifted her head out of her hands and glanced at Margaery. Her big brown eyes were looking at her softly. They were full of compassion, maybe even- no. Sansa pushed the thought away. There was no way that Margaery loved her. 

“Look,” Margaery said, “no one could have expected you’d know that he’d be abusive. Sometimes when you look at someone, you only see the parts that you want to. You were only nine and ten when you two got married, weren’t you?” Sansa nodded. Margaery smiled at her, then. 

“See? You have an excuse. All nine and ten year olds are stupid, me included,” she said. Sansa looked at her then. 

“What stupid thing did _you _do at nine and ten?” Sansa asked wryly. 

“My brother’s boyfriend and I were pretending to date to maintain appearances,” Margaery said, “I accidentally got us all outed, quite publicly. I thought that my grandmother would be furious, but she was just glad that we didn’t have to pretend to be something we weren’t anymore. She thought that the headlines were quite funny too, even if they did harm our business for a while.” Sansa nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure where Margaery was taking this.

“What I’m saying is that I think your family will be happy to take you back,” Margaery said. 

“Alright,” Sansa said, and for the first time she felt like maybe Margaery was right. 

“Maybe you could leave him?” Margaery asked.

“Maybe,” Sansa replied. It was non-committal, but she could feel the idea taking hold in her mind. It was just a seed then, but soon it would be a beautiful tree- ancient and unavoidable. A whole weirwood, calling her home to her family and the old gods and far away from Joffrey Baratheon. All it would take to implement it would be courage. 

Courage had always been something Sansa lacked. 

Margaery took her home later that day, and Sansa laid down on the couch. She got on her phone, but she didn’t pull up 2048. She flipped through the oldest pictures on her phone, selfies she took with family members and pictures of herself with paintings that she did in middle school and high school. She could have more selfies and more painting pictures if she’d taken a different path. 

She looked at her messages, then. So many texts from siblings where she’d left them on read. So many missed calls from one of her parents. Could they really want her back, like Margaery had said? She wasn’t able to finish the thought before she heard Joffrey coming through. She flipped out of the tabs quickly and opened 2048 instead. 

Joffrey looked over to her, sprawled out on the couch like always.

“Productive day,” he muttered, glaring at her. He dropped his briefcase and his empty travel coffee cup on the counter. 

“I spent today in meetings and getting yelled at, in public, by my grandfather, and what did you do? Phone games?” Sansa put her phone down on the couch and sat up to look at him. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. She really was. Tywin Lannister never yelled, but it was almost worse that way. Every word of an insult was delivered in a calm, cold manner so that the other person knew that anger didn’t heighten the insults; they were exactly what Tywin thought. Whenever Tywin called Joffrey incompetent or stupid, he meant every word. And he said it in front of everyone. 

Joffrey flung the metal coffee mug at her face. She heard the deep, loud _thunk _before she felt it. Then she screamed. It hurt, like that time when she was playing softball with her siblings and she got in the way of one of Robb’s swings. He’d nailed her directly in the forehead and it ached like crazy, but Robb’s face had gone white and he looked terrified as he ran over to comfort her, _I’m sorrys _and _are you alrights _spilling from his lips.

“I’m going out,” Joffrey said, not even bothering to acknowledge her noise of pain, “Maybe that’ll give you something to focus on other than phone games.” Sansa felt her blood boiling in her veins and her face aching, but she kept herself from arguing and didn’t move from the couch until he left. She got up to get an ice pack for her face and then she texted Margaery. 

“Can’t leave the house, but can we voice chat?” Margaery called her within the minute. Margaery’s face exploded across her screen, and she sent her a relieved smile. Then, Sansa set up her phone on the coffee table behind a remote so it would stand up without her having to hold it and she put her ice pack back on her face. It felt good to have the cold on the area that was quickly beginning to bruise. 

“What happened?” Margaery asked, sending her a concerned look. 

“He flung his metal coffee cup at my face when he got home from work,” Sansa said. Margaery’s face contorted in concern, and Sansa shook her head no. She did not need that right now. She needed something to take her mind _off _that.

“Just tell me something happy that happened today,” Sansa said, “or turn on some music or, I don’t know, just something. I want to think about anything else.” Margaery nodded. 

“Alright,” she said, “I’ll tell you the good news then. So, my brother Loras called today. He and his boyfriend are engaged! Renly’s going to be my good brother!” Margaery’s smile was ear to ear. 

“And I get to be his maid of honor! How awesome is that!” Sansa remembered two texts from Robb, one an excited text about him and Theon getting engaged and how she would have to come back to Winterfell for the wedding- it would be soon, and then another text a few weeks later calling off the whole thing off. She knows that she wouldn’t have been his maid of honor (Jon would have been the best man) but she could have been a groomswoman- or a groomsmaid, or something along those lines. Maybe she wouldn’t have been anything, but she could have been a proud sister wishing her brother and former foster brother well. 

Sansa could feel tears coming to her eyes, but she closed them instead and forced them back inside. 

“Are you alright?” Margaery asked. 

“Perfect,” Sansa said, and her voice only cracked a little, “I’m just soaking it all in and imaging it.”

“Alright,” Margaery said, and she continued with the story about how they’d started planning the wedding. Margaery sounded so happy that Sansa couldn’t help but feel a little happy too, even with the unhappy feelings flooding her mind. Maybe she’d get to meet Loras, one day. Maybe she’d even get to go with Margaery to the wedding. 

“I hear something,” Margaery said, “I gotta go.” Margaery hung up the phone, and Sansa was grateful for it. Joffrey stumbled through the door a moment later, drunk as he ever had been. He fell down on the couch beside her.

“Water?” he asked. Sansa sighed, but she got up and got him a glass of water. She set it down on the coffee table in front of him and sat down beside him.

“M sorry,” he muttered, looking over to where she was holding the ice pack, “Shouldn’t’ve thrown that. You didn’t deserve it.” Sansa held her ice pack. She did not say “it’s alright” because it wasn’t, and Joffrey wasn’t in any state to retaliate if silence had been the wrong answer. Instead, she just nodded at him. 

“I can’t go anywhere this weekend looking like this, Joff,” she said, glaring, “so your grandfather will be mad that I’m gone from another big event. You’re just digging your hole deeper.”

“I’m sorry, I just get so mad, and I- I can’t control it,” he said, “you know that, Sans.” She remembered some old television program, then. It had been a biography of The Dragon Queen. When Daenerys was little, her older brother Viserys used to threaten her and tell her not to make him angry or she’d “wake the dragon”. Then he would do all the terrible things he was going to do to her anyway, but then it would be her fault. 

She never thought she’d end up in a situation like that, where her husband blamed her for “waking the dragon” inside him.

“You could control it just fine,” Sansa said. 

“S’grandfather’s fault,” Joffrey said. Sansa didn’t bother fighting with him. Firstly, she had never once won an argument with Joffrey. Secondly, he wouldn’t even remember this conversation when he woke up the next morning.

“I’m going to bed,” she said. She curled up in bed and pulled up her text chat with her mother. The newest message was from two weeks ago, a message from her mother concerning her health that she’d elected to ignore. She typed up a message that just said, “hey mom”. She ghosted her finger over the send key, agonizing over whether or not to risk it. What if her family hated her, now? She’d been ghosting most of them for years. Sansa wasn’t sure if she would forgive her, if she were them. She deleted the “hey mom” and thought about the best way to word her text if she were to send one.

“If I wanted to visit sometime soon, would that be alright?” she finally sent her mother. The “sending” bubble came up immediately, but it took about three minutes of thinking for the message from her mother to finally come through. Sansa would bet that her mother and father were talking the response over between themselves. 

“Sansa, we would love to have you whenever. There is always a place for you at home, for as long as you need it.” Sansa thought about plane tickets and uber rides and escape. She thought about divorce papers and never setting foot back in King’s Landing. They were sad thoughts. They were happy thoughts. Most of all, they were dangerous thoughts. 

Sansa sat there in bed, crying, clutching her phone. She stared at the painting of Storm’s End on the wall until she fell asleep. When she finally did, she dreamed of Winterfell and her family. She dreamed that she was home and introducing Margaery to them. It almost hurt when she woke up next to Joffrey the next morning.

Joffrey woke soon after her, and Sansa could tell that he was pissed and hung over. Sansa got up without speaking to him and made her way to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee. Sadly, Joffrey followed her in. 

“Can I have some of that coffee?” he asked. She nodded, and let Joffrey pour half the pot into his favorite, enormous Baratheon stag mug. He sat down beside her at the bar and took a huge swig of coffee. Then another for good measure. 

“What did I say last night?” he asked, looking down into his coffee mug. 

“You said sorry about what you did to my face,” Sansa said, “and something about your grandfather.” 

“Oh yes,” Joffrey said, grimacing, “that.” He took another sip. 

“What was it?” Sansa asked. 

“Nothing,” Joffrey said, “just normal things. The basic insults about how I’m an incompetent and blundering drunk. Too much of my father in me, apparently.” Sansa didn’t say anything. 

Joffrey glared at her and said, “You could say something to that, you know. I think there’s supposed to be comforting.” 

“Nothing I can do can fix what your grandfather does,” Sansa said. 

“You could sympathize with me, at least,” Joffrey hissed. Sansa felt bad that Tywin was so hard on Joffrey, but there was nothing that she could do about it. Joffrey was the one who wouldn’t quit his job at the Lannister family company and try to find other employment, even with the Baratheon side of the family. Joffrey was the one who wouldn’t accept her help when she tried to stand up to Tywin for him. 

All Joffrey did was stew and blame and hurt her for it. She couldn’t paint over the nasty reality that was his relationship with his grandfather. 

“I can tell you that he’s wrong until I run out of air, but it won’t make you feel any better. You’d never listen to me over him.” Joffrey’s look soured at that. 

“It’s because you don’t know anything. You don’t know anything about this company. You’re supposed to be a part of this family, but you don’t act like it. You don’t know anything about this business. You don’t talk to my grandfather, you won’t paint my mother- you don’t care about me.” 

“Of course I care about you,” Sansa said, and she wished that it was a lie. But it wasn’t. Sansa knew Joffrey better than she knew almost anyone, and she knew that somewhere under all that bad was buried some good. She was always trying desperately to get that good to come out more often. It never worked. 

“Why won’t you paint my mother, then? Or me. I miss having paintings of me.” He looked genuinely saddened by this, as though he hadn’t caused and then ignored the depressive spiral that led Sansa to stop painting in the first place. 

“I haven’t been inspired to paint recently,” Sansa said. 

“You were sure inspired to paint Margaery about a month ago,” Joffrey hissed. Sansa’s eyes widen then. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Those paintings you did were of Margaery Tyrell,” Joffrey said, “the girl in the junk and the girl in the flowerpatch. They were both women with curly brown hair, and you’d been talking to Margaery. Of course it was her. I’m not fucking blind, Sansa.” She tried to look natural. She picked up her “Winterfell Wolves” sports team mug and took a sip of her coffee. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.,” she said smoothly.

“Oh come _on_. You’re laughing with her at company lunches and you look like you’re having the time of your life. You don’t ever laugh at_ my _jokes. When you talk to me you act like you’re a dead fish just floating there!” 

“Maybe Margaery’s just better company,” Sansa said. 

“So I’ve heard,” Joffrey said, “I’ve heard that you’ve been all over town with her recently. You were supposed to see her once, no more.” 

“I only saw her once.” Joffrey reached forward and grabbed both of her arms.

“Don’t lie to me. You’ve been seeing her. I bet you’ve been fucking that dyke too.” 

“Joffrey-” He silenced her with a look so cold it reminded her of Uncle Benjen’s house Beyond the Wall. 

“You are married to _me_, not Margaery,” Joffrey said, digging his fingernails into her arm, “I already put that dent in your head yesterday. I’d hate to have to add another one so soon.” Sansa grimaced and found herself taking in a hasty breath. 

“You’re hurting me,” she said softly. 

“Oh, am I?” he laughed coldly and dug it in tighter, Sansa doubted if his grip could get tighter now, “-You’re hurting me too, seeing her.” He dug them in almost deep enough to draw blood.

“It’s only you,” Sansa promised. Joffrey huffed, but he let go of her. She felt the drops of blood running down the backside of her biceps. Sansa thought about raising a hand to the wound to touch it gently but decided against it. That would only make it worse. 

“Maybe so. Either way, I’m freezing your access to the accounts,” Joffrey said.

“Wait- what?” Sansa asked, eyes widening. 

“I’m freezing your access to the bank accounts,” Joffrey said, “are you deaf or are you just plain dumb?” 

“But I- I don’t understand,” Sansa said, “that’s my money too.” That’s how marriage works. They said their vows in a sept and now what’s hers is his and what’s his is hers. 

“The money is mine, not yours. I won’t have you blowing it all over town with Margaery Tyrell.” _I won’t have you leaving with her, _Sansa thought, the chill settling over her. Their marriage had been a mockery for a long time by now, but she thought at least legal aspects like that would hold. She had thought, maybe, she could get tickets back home. Maybe she could finally get out. 

She felt those dreams shrivel up like Grandpa Hoster at the swimming pool. Then, Joffrey smiled his cruellest smile. 

“Margaery doesn’t care about you, by the way,” Joffrey said, “she’s just using you to get to the company. You think you’re so special you’d warrant her notice if she weren’t trying to make a deal with Lanniscorp? You’re _nothing_ without me.” Sansa sat there, frozen, as Joffrey made his way across the kitchen to the spot where he always left his keys. He picked them up, opened the front door, and let it slam behind him. 

Sansa felt too scared to text Margaery that day, and she didn’t text the next day until Joffrey finally left the house, leaving her with a searing kiss and a “you’re mine, don’t forget that”. 

“I need to see you,” Sansa texted. Margaery responded almost immediately and was standing outside her door within the hour. Sansa gathered up her favorite paintings that she’d ever done of Margaery into a plastic bag and brought them out when she met Margaery on the driveway. 

“I have some things for you,” Sansa said, showing Margaery the enormous plastic bag filled to the brim with paintings. She couldn’t fit all of them in, but she got the ones that she thought Margaery would like best. 

“What is that?” Margaery asked. She sent a concerned look towards the purpling bruise on Sansa’s face, but she did not comment again. Sansa appreciated that. 

“A present,” Sansa said, smiling. 

“Alright,” Margaery said, “where do you want to go?” 

“Let’s go to your hotel,” Sansa said, “I think that would be safest today.” They drove, listening to _The Florian Brothers _the whole way. Then, when they got to Margaery’s hotel room they curled up on the bed. Margaery glanced at the bag of paintings in Sansa’s hands. 

“So,” Margaery said, “what’s that?” Sansa handed them over to her. 

“These are paintings I made of you,” she said, “they’re for you to take home.” 

“Sansa- I-” Margaery stuttered out something resembling a thank you. She seemed too shocked and grateful to get the words out right. 

“You’re welcome,” Sansa told her, sending her a small smile, “it’ll be something to remember me by.” 

“Remember you by?” Margaery asked. 

“When you go back to Highgarden and I’m stuck here,” Sansa said. 

“I’m not going anywhere any time soon,” Margaery said. 

“And neither am I, apparently. I was thinking about it, but then Joffrey froze my access to my money,” Sansa said, “I was thinking about getting tickets home, but I’m stuck now. I can’t leave.” Sansa could see Margaery getting an idea. She could see it in the look on her face.

“Divorce him and leave with me,” Margaery said, taking Sansa’s hand in hers. 

“I can’t pay for that,” Sansa said. 

“I can buy you a plane ticket and divorce papers, Sansa,” Margaery said, “I have the money for something like that. I’m a Tyrell, for Seven’s sake.” 

“Joffrey made it sound like it wouldn’t happen, but it’s not like he’s in charge,” Sansa said, “you could still probably get what you need. If you ran off with his wife, though, there’s no way you could.” 

“The others take the deal,” Margaery said, “I’m not working with a man who beats his wife and a family that lets him. I’m sure that my grandmother will agree with me.” Sansa looked at her skeptically.

“You really want to leave with me?” Sansa hadn’t even allowed herself to hope that this was anything more than a fling. 

“I do,” Margaery said. Sansa bit her lip. Alright, so maybe this _was_ on the table. She wanted to leave with Margaery, but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to go to Highgarden.

“Where would we go?” Sansa asked. 

“We could go to Highgarden,” Margaery said, “or we could go up North with your family. Grandmother’s been thinking of expanding the brand up North in White Harbor. I could probably talk her into Winterfell instead.” Sansa felt her breath catch. 

“You’d do that for me?” Sansa asked. She didn’t think she’d ever heard something more wonderful. 

“Of course,” Margaery said, “I’d move the Wall for you, if I could.” Margaery smiled at her then, soft and sincere and knowing. It was the rawest thing that Sansa had ever seen. Sansa did not know how to deal with that, so she changed the subject. 

“Look at the paintings,” Sansa said. Margaery nodded, and then she pulled the plastic bag off the canvases. When she saw the contents, Margaery’s eyes lit up. She gently laid them out on the bed and looked at them. 

“You did all of these, of me?” she asked. She gingerly picked up the one of her stepping into the world of Sansa’s paintings and stared at it with awe in her eyes. 

“Did you do this because I understood your symbolism?” 

“I did.” 

“Sansa,” Margaery said, “this is the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever seen.” Her eyes were starry, and there was a hint of a tear forming in them. 

“I rather think I’ve fallen in love with you,” she said. The thought hit her like a freight train, but after she composed herself, Sansa said what she thought. 

“I rather think I’ve fallen in love with you too.” Margaery grinned widely and took Sansa’s hand in hers. She latched herself onto Sansa’s side like a barnacle and put the painting over both of their two laps. Margaery stared at the painting like she was trying to step inside of it herself, just like the Margaery in the painting. 

“This is what it will feel like when we leave,” Margaery said, “I promise. It will be absolutely awe-inspiring.” 

“The only things I care about are that we’ll be gone and that we’ll be together,” Sansa said. Margaery smiled. 

“That’s the plan, as long as you want it.” Sansa felt tears pooling in her eyes. 

“Please,” Sansa said, “take me away. Take me home.” She hadn’t been somewhere that felt like home in _so long. _All she wanted at the moment was to go home to Winterfell and see her family and never, ever leave them or Margaery ever again. 

“I don’t have a white horse,” Margaery said, “but I hope that a green sports car will do.” 

Margaery ordered plane tickets to Winterfell for the next day while Joffrey would be at work. If everything went according to plan, Sansa and Margaery would be in Winterfell by the next night. 

Margaery dropped her off and then drove away, and Sansa walked up to unlock the door like she was floating on air. She nearly skipped through the hallway and into the living room. She stopped skipping the moment that she saw her husband. Joffrey was clutching a painting of Margaery with a background of yellow roses in his hand. _Sansa had left the laundry room cracked when she went to Margaery’s. _

“What the fuck is this?” he demanded. 

“They’re paintings, Joff,” Sansa said sensibly. His face turned red in anger. 

“Paintings of Margaery Tyrell,” he shouted. He held up one of soft, pink roses growing out of the corners of Margaery’s smile. Another, just a closeup of her nose and eyes, with deep forests of brown and green nestled in her eyes. The detail work and precision were slavish, and it was clear that every brushstroke had been painted with infatuation. This was done by a woman painting her muse. 

“It’s not what it looks like,” Sansa said, but she had no idea what else she could claim it would be. 

“Then what the fuck is it?” Joffrey demanded. She took her phone out of her pocket discretely and glanced down, texting Margaery “he knows” as quickly as she could before shoving it back down. 

“You’re texting her now!” Sansa had no idea what clever ruse or half-truth she could come up with to get out of this situation, so she decided to go with the truth. Sansa took a deep breath and steeled herself for a hit that she was sure to come. 

“Yes, I _am _texting her now. And I’m leaving with her,” Sansa said firmly. Joffrey’s hand curled into a fist and his lip curled into a snarl. 

“You filthy freak!” he shouted. Sansa sighed. Maybe she wasn’t sleeping with her yet, but she wanted to be. 

“Joffrey, please, calm down” Sansa said. 

“You’re having an affair, you’re leaving me,” Joffrey sneers, “and you want _me_ to calm down!” He threw all the paintings but one onto the ground and held it up for her to see clearly. It was a close-up on Margaery’s nose and eyes, with the deepest woods in the Riverlands tucked into the brown of her irises. He smiled at it for a moment, then he smashed it on the corner of the coffee table. The canvas crumpled up in the middle around the exit wound and she could see rips at different parts of the picture. The hard, wooden part of the canvas broke in two. She could never fix that painting, no matter how hard she tried. 

“Joff!” Sansa shouted. She has watched him destroy her work before, in a rage, but he’s never done it so blatantly to _hurt her. _He was drunk and angry about his grandfather, or angry about his mother, or angry about his father. He always just wanted to destroy something. It was never that he wanted to destroy her, specifically.

“I’ll smash these one by one,” Joffrey said, pointing down to the pile underneath his feet, “don’t you fucking test me. Text her and tell her to fuck off and I might not destroy all of them.” Somehow, she doubted that. Joffrey wouldn’t let her keep pictures of her lover hanging around the house. 

“I won’t do that. I’m leaving with her,” Sansa said firmly. Joffrey had done much worse than smash her paintings, in the past. He’d hurt her over and over again, sometimes in public. What was he going to do now that he knew she was cheating on him? That she was leaving? _Please, Margaery, _she thinks, _hurry. _Joffrey stomped on the paintings and cleared the distance between them. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held tightly. 

“You can’t leave,” he hissed. 

“Margaery already has the plane tickets, what are you going to do, lock me in the basement?” Sansa sneered. They didn’t even _have _a basement. This wasn’t the Stormlands or the Reach where they have tornadoes and that was a necessity. Joffrey glared, but he moved his hands from her shoulders. 

She thought that she’d won then. He was giving up and letting her go. Instead, though, Joffrey grabbed her head with his stronger hand and threw it down onto the corner of the coffee table. 

The last thing she felt before she blacked out was pain. 

Sansa felt her head throbbing when she woke up. Her arms felt like they were being yanked off her body. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. Joffrey was standing in the laundry room doorway, leaning comfortably against one of the door frames. He was holding all her paintings of Maragery in his arms, including the broken bits of the one of Margaery’s eyes. 

“Oh good,” Joffrey said, “you’re up.” Sansa tried to move forward, but she caught her wrists on something. Her left wrist was handcuffed high above her head onto the washing machine, and her right wrist was handcuffed low to the ground at the circular, metal foot of the dryer. 

“Handcuffs?” Sansa asked skeptically. 

“I couldn’t have you running away, could I?” Sansa opened her mouth, about to ask where Joffrey even _got _handcuffs, when she was abruptly transported back to their sex life freshman year of college. _Seven, _she thinks, _I really wish we’d never bought those. _She tried to move her legs to no avail. They were taped down. She looked down at her waist and saw that her entire lower half was submerged in her plastic laundry basket, which was duct taped down so well that it looked like that duct tape skirt that she made for her seventh-grade spring formal since duct tape was fashionable then. Her legs, apparently, were taped to the inside as well. She flailed against it but it didn’t give at all. It just dug into her legs and felt like rope burn. 

“You can’t get out that way,” Joffrey said, “it’s not worth trying.” Sansa glared. 

“So what are you gonna do now?” Sansa asked, “break all my paintings in front of me?” Joffrey bent down to her level and put her paintings on the ground next to her hand. He looked her directly in the eye as he squatted down to her level.

“Well,” he said, “I was going to destroy them, but I was thinking more _burning_ than crushing.” Sansa’s eyes darted towards the laundry room sink. On the edge of the sink Sansa saw a bottle of lighter fluid and the lighter that she used for candles. They were always lemon scented. She had a sinking suspicion this wouldn't be. 

“And not just the paintings, actually,” Joffrey said, “I was going to burn your painting hand along with it.”

“What?” Sansa demanded, her eyes opening wide, “you- you can’t. That’s the sort of thing you go to _prison _for.” Joffrey wouldn’t do something so stupid, would he?

“I’m Joffrey Baratheon, okay?” he said, “my dad’s Lord of Storm’s End and my grandfather runs fucking Lanniscorp. You think they’ll send me to jail?” 

“They will if you murder me,” Sansa said. At least, she hoped that was true. 

“You won’t die, and I already have the story of what happened. You were trying to hide your affair, so you tried to set all your paintings of Margaery on fire. It was so sad that you accidentally caught your hand on fire too.” 

“I’ll have bruises from these handcuffs, Joff,” Sansa hissed, “what will they think about those?” 

“Do you really think the cops will doubt that we like to get a little frisky?” Joffrey said, and it was with such a light, flirty air that Sansa almost forgot that he wasn’t in sweet mode. He was in “burn off your hand for kicks” mode. 

“The cops won’t even come, anyway,” Joffrey says, “I’ll drive you to the hospital myself, tell the story, and likely nothing more will come of it.” It’s not as though this was a new phenomena, but Sansa had never seen it so plainly before. Joffrey wanted to burn her damn hand to a crisp and he thought that he would get away with it. 

“If any of them doubt it, a little money will shut them up. And you know I have plenty of that.” Sansa winced. It wasn’t like Joffrey was wrong. He positioned the paintings on top of her right hand, and Sansa flicked her wrist firmly, managing to throw the paintings about six inches away from her. It hurt her wrist so badly she thought that it might bruise. Joffrey picked up the paintings again and set them on the side of the sink for later. 

“Why would you want to do this?” Sansa asked, leaning as far back as she could to get away from him. It hurt her wrists, but she couldn’t help it. The urge to protect herself from burning overcame her reaction to the pain. 

“If you don’t paint me, there’s no reason that you should paint,” Joffrey said, and there was a mad glint in his eyes. 

“I’ll paint you,” Sansa said, “I promise, I’ll paint you-” 

“You won’t,” Joffrey said, “but you won’t paint Margaery anymore, either.” Sansa felt her frustration building as the severity and ridiculousness of the situation started to hit her. She wanted to _scream at him. _

“You cut off my access to the accounts,” Sansa said, “how would I get the money for paints? You don’t need to do this.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes- _please, please don’t_\- but Joffrey just laughed.

“I suppose it’s not just so you can’t paint any more. I want to hurt you too, and I’ve never seen someone burn like Clegane did. I thought it might be fun.” Sandor’s words from all that time ago echo in her mind: _the sort of man who’d shove your face in a fire just to watch it burn and listen to you scream. _

He poured the lighter fluid all over her right hand- her _painting_ hand. She felt drops of lighter fluid slipping down her fingers. Drip. Drip. Drip. The smell invaded her nostrils like the scent of spilling a bit of gasoline on herself at the pump. This was really happening. Joffrey was going to burn her head to a crisp and maybe the rest of her with it. 

Sansa had never been burned badly before. She’d gotten little burns on the stove while making lemon cakes or cookies, tiny blisters from fireworks, but she didn’t know what a burn like Sandor Clegane’s felt like. She flailed against the handcuffs, then. Flailed and screeched and hoped, desperately, that something would break. A wrist, or the cuffs, or maybe one of the appliances. She needed out and she needed out _now_. 

“You can’t get out,” he said, “so it’s not worth fighting like this. You’ll just hurt yourself worse.” But Sansa didn’t care. She just flailed and screamed until her throat started to hurt and hoped that somebody, _anybody, _would hear. He picked up the pile of paintings and threw them down onto her hand. Then, he stomped them down. He took out the lighter fluid again and poured it all over the paintings as well. 

She flailed as hard as she could to try to get them off, but it didn’t accomplish anything but hurting her hand. Joffrey was putting his entire weight down on the pile, and it hurt so badly. She knew that it would only get worse and he was picking up the lighter and _oh shit this is really happening-_

From behind Joffrey, she spotted a figure approach. Someone had come to save her. 

The figure came into focus and she knew that build, knew that face. It was Margaery with her curly hair pulled into a ponytail and lips curled into a frown. She was wearing a tight, bright green tank top and holding a handgun in front of her. She didn’t look much like a knight in shining armor, but it was so close that it hurt. 

“What are you smiling about?” Joffrey demanded, and Margaery chose that moment to alert him to her presence.

“That would be me,” Margaery said, and she shoved the gun into his back. Sansa expected Joffrey to say something or turn around and try to fight Margaery. But he didn’t. Joffrey lit up the lighter in his hand. If he dropped it now, it would set the paintings and her whole hand ablaze. She might lose her whole arm out of it. 

“Stop him!” Sansa cried out, and Joffrey laughed and dropped the lighter himself. The only thing that he didn’t count on was the fire going out on the way down. By the time it hit the pile, there wasn’t even a spark. Sansa started laughing in relief. 

“Were you going to immolate her?” Margaery shouted. 

“Just her painting hand,” Joffrey said, turning around slowly, “couldn’t have her making anymore pictures of you.” 

“Stop moving,” Margaery demanded, “I’m the one with the gun here.” Joffrey scoffed. 

“You wouldn’t shoot,” he scoffed.

“Do you want to test me?” Margaery asked. 

“Yeah,” he said, turning back around, “I do.” Joffrey moved quicker than she’d ever seen him move before, grabbing the lighter and the fluid. He opened the bottle up. Then, he threw as much as he could all over Margaery. Her hair and shirt were sopping wet. Little bits were dripping down the rest of her. Maybe her whole body wouldn’t go up in flames, but all the important parts would. She’d still be dead.

Sansa shrieked as loudly as she could.

“Shut up,” Joffrey hissed, hitting the trigger and setting the lighter aflame. He rushed forward quickly, the flames nearly kissing Margaery’s sopping wet hair, and-

_Bang_

Joffrey fell to the ground, gasping in pain. The lighter fell with him right into his lap, setting a patch of leg hair aflame and leaving a small but searing burn. He winced in pain. Soon, his white t-shirt was turning red with blood. Joffrey sputtered, and it sounded bloody and wet. 

“You shot me!” 

“Shit,” Margaery stood there helplessly, looking at her gun in confusion, “I didn’t mean to hit him straight in the chest. I just- I wanted to get his leg. Something to make him drop the lighter-” There was blood spattered on her green tank top, and Margaery’s face was starting to look as green as her shirt was. 

“It’s alright,” Sansa said softly. 

“S not!” Joffrey shouted, curling into a ball like a rolly polly, “not alright.” He shook his head, shaking wildly as the blood ran out of him. 

“It’s alright,” Sansa repeated.

Then, she added, “You should call an ambulance, though.” Margaery nodded, still looking frazzled. 

“I already called the police, but an ambulance is smart too.”

“Hello, yes,” Margaery said, voice shaking, “I have someone bleeding out on the floor right now.” She removed the phone from her face. 

“What’s your address?”

“2324 Storm’s Way,” Sansa said. Margaery repeated that to them. Then, she started working at the wall of duct tape sealing Sansa’s laundry basket skirt to the ground. If she could take it off one piece of tape at a time, then maybe it would be off by the time that they ambulance got there. Margaery had only gotten one strip off by the time that they ambulance got there, half because the ambulance was fast and half because she was slow. 

When the ambulance came to drag Joffrey off, Sansa barely noticed anything. The EMTs told her sorry that they couldn’t free her, but they said that they had to go and that they had to go now. Joffrey was dying already, and he wouldn’t make it if they stayed. Sansa was so out of it that she barely noticed anyway. 

The police came after that. It might have been soon, or it might have been after a long time. Sansa found that she could not tell.

The officers stood there for a moment, clad in black with gold badges, and they looked on in horror at what they saw. A woman soaking wet in lighter fluid and another handcuffed to the washing machine and dryer, legs sealed in a duct tape cocoon.

“I’m going to take a guess,” one of them says, looking at her, “that this wasn’t a weird sex thing gone wrong?” Sansa let out a choked laugh, and then she couldn’t stop. She was laughing, and laughing, and Margaery leaned over, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s alright,” she murmured. Sansa was able to stop the nervous laughter, but she doubted that she looked any less shaken up.

“Hey,” the officer said, “it’s okay. We’ll get you out.” The officers got her out fairly quickly, considering how stuck she was. First, they cut the duct tape holding the laundry basket. The ripped the basket from her feet and helped get it off. Then they jimmied the locks on the handcuffs and finally freed Sansa entirely.

“What happens now?” Margaery asked, her voice small. 

“I’m sorry,” a female officer said, “but we have to take you both into custody. They need to ask you some questions.” Sansa nodded. 

“Thank you, officer,” Sansa said. The officers escorted them outside to the police car and opened the back door for them. 

“Again,” they said, “sorry about this.” Sansa nodded, and Margaery slipped into the backseat. It was a little exciting, actually. Sansa had never been in the back of a police car before. 

Margaery demanded a lawyer the moment that they got to the station and called for her grandmother’s favorite in King’s Landing. Sansa half wished that she would have called her mother. Her mother wasn’t a defense attorney primarily, but she always said firmly that if any of her family needed a lawyer she could and would take care of it. Sansa never imagined that she’d _need_ a lawyer. She certainly never imagined that she’d need one and couldn’t ask for her mother.

There was questioning. The police wanted to know everything. So Sansa told them. She told them about the years of physical abuse that could be backed up by the Lannister family physician if they wanted to ask the man. She told them about how trapped she felt, how she just wanted to leave with Margaery, and how she felt the only way that she could do that would be if she never told him. Then she told them about where she got the marks on her head, and how he knocked her out and bound her and planned to burn her hand along with her paintings. 

They asked Margaery why she brought a gun, and Margaery said that she wasn’t going to Sansa’s abusive husband’s house without some protection. They asked if she’d meant to kill him, and she promised them that she meant to hit his leg but was so scared that she just shot straight forward.

“It was the only time in my whole life that I’ve done something straight,” Margaery said, and it forced a giggle out of a sullen Sansa. The officer questioning her did not so much as grin. They continued the questioning, the officers pursuing just about every thread that they could think about. Then, they finally delivered the news.

“Joffrey died in the hospital about an hour ago,” the officer said. Sansa did not say “good riddance” out loud because it would hurt their case for self-defense. She thought it, though. Sansa knew that it was a terrible thing to think after almost four years of marriage, but Joffrey had been terrible to her. It just took her far too long to realize it. Sansa was three and twenty and already glad about being a widow. This certainly wasn’t the life she expected to lead.

“The city watch has found enough evidence against Joffrey Baratheon to rule this self-defense. You are both free to go.” Sansa started crying then in relief. She wrapped her arms around Margaery’s form, hugging her more tightly than she’d ever hugged someone before. Then, she planted a kiss on her lips. 

Sansa and Margaery went out to the lobby to sit. Margaery called Olenna to come pick them up. About twenty minutes later, the little old woman pulled up to the police station in her blue sports car. They got into the car, and Olenna started driving. She drove surprisingly well for a woman of two and seventy. Margaery and Olenna discussed her plans to move to Winterfell and how she would get things taken care of later. They decided to run by Sansa’ place to pick up Margaery’s car and their luggage. Sansa and Margaery both showered, and then Margaery changed into some of her clothes. Sansa was skinnier and taller than Margaery was, but they were able to make some of her clothes fit well enough to leave the house in them.

“You know,” Margaery said, “we could just drive. It’s only about a fifteen-hour drive North on the Kingsroad to Winterfell. We could make it by tomorrow if we took turns driving.” Sansa beamed at her. She had never been more in love. Margaery started driving towards the Kingsroad. Sansa called her mother and let her know they were on their way and would likely be there in fifteen hours. 

“Okay,” Sansa said, “she knows that we’re coming.” Margaery smiled at the road. 

“Can you turn on _the Florian Brothers_ for me?” she asked. Sansa reached into the cupholder for Margaery’s phone and then glanced over.

“Are you sure you’re alright with driving the whole way?”

“We’ll switch on and off,” Margaery said, “it won’t be too big of a deal.”

“But driving can be tiring either way,” Sansa said. Margaery sent her a serious look.

“Sansa,” she said, “it’s been years since you’ve seen your family. If you want to get there as soon as possible, I will do everything in my power to get you there.” Sansa’s breath caught in her throat. Sometimes she still found herself forgetting how much Margaery cared.

“Thank you,” Sansa said. Margaery smiles then, and waved her hand vaguely towards her phone.

“Now crank my tunes, please.” Sansa plugged Margaery’s phone into the aux chord and started _the Florian Brothers's _new album. The first track, _Sucker_, blared through the speakers. 

“We go together,” Sansa sung along with Nick Florian, and Margaery grinned beside her, dancing a little along with the melody. 

Then, the three of them sang together, even though Margaery couldn’t hold a pitch to save her life, “better than birds of a feather, you and me. We change the weather, yeah. I’m feeling heat beyond the Wall when you’re around me.” Sansa hoped that she could take Margaery beyond the Wall, someday. She hadn’t been to Uncle Benjen’s place in years, and it was always such an adventure. She thought that Margaery would like that. 

“I’ve been dancing on top of cars and stumbling out of bars. I follow you through the dark, can’t get enough. You’re the medicine and the pain, the tattoo inside my brain. And baby you know it’s obvious- I’m a sucker for you. Say the word and I’ll go anywhere blindly.” Margaery would even start driving hundreds of miles up the Kingsroad without so much of a second thought. 

“I’m a sucker for you.” And Sansa was, and Margaery was too: suckers for each other. _The Florian Brothers _kept singing, and so did Sansa and Margaery. They allowed all thoughts to slip into the background except being safe and happy. 

Sansa and Margaery pulled off on their exit for Winterfell at eleven o’clock the next morning, and Sansa called her mother to let her know they’d be there in twenty minutes. They got there soon enough, and Sansa nearly ran to the front door to ring the bell. Her mother ran through the front door and drew her into a bone crushing hug, her father wrapped his arms around the both of them. Margaery came up behind them, and when she heard her girlfriend’s footsteps she thought maybe she should break the hug. She didn’t, though, and let her family hold her close a little longer. It was nice. She felt safe again, and she’d almost forgotten the smell of her father’s cologne.

When the hug finally broke, Sansa asked, “Where are the boys?” 

“Bran and Rickon are at school,” her mom said. Sansa froze. She’d somehow completely forgotten that this was a Monday morning. 

“Yes, of course,” she said, “how could I forget?” She had kind of hoped that she would roll up to her house and somehow all of her siblings would all be there, even though Jon’s living beyond the Wall, Robb has a real adult job and Arya’s a college student and Bran and Rickon have school. She just, she’d been hoping for a big family hug. A perfect reunion all at once. Her father’s look hardened as his eyes settled on Margaery. 

“Who is this?” he asked.

“This is Margaery,” Sansa said, taking her hand, “she’s my girlfriend.” While her mom seemed concerned, she didn’t say anything. Then her eyes widened in terror as she looked at the marks on Sansa’s face. 

“What happened there?” she asked. 

“Joffrey happened,” Margaery said sullenly. A look of righteous fury appeared on her mother’s face.

“Joffrey did that to you?” she demanded. Sansa nodded. Her mother pulled her into another hug, gently rubbing her hands on her back.

“When I get my hands on him, I swear to the Seven, he will _pay _for putting his hands on you,” her mother said. Catelyn Stark was the fiercest woman that Sansa ever met, and she had no doubt that her mother would have done anything in her power to bring Joffrey to justice for what he’d done to her. She wished, for a moment, that Joffrey was still alive for her to see that.

“Sansa, I am so sorry,” he said, “I’ll call Robert. I know he’ll have _words_ for Joffrey after what he’s done.” Her father looked ready to rain righteous Robert shaped hellfire down on Joffrey, but Sansa knew that wasn’t possible.

“That won’t be necessary,” Sansa said. Her parents both looked confused, then.

“Won’t be necessary?” her father asked, “why wouldn’t doing everything we can about this be necessary?”

“I,” Sansa shook her head, “I don’t know how to say this.” So much had happened that her parents had no idea of. Sansa didn’t even know where to start. With her own despondency? Joffrey’s abuse? The beginning of her affair? (Could it even be called an affair, when they hadn’t even kissed until Joffrey was dead?) Joffrey’s attempt to maim her and kill Margaery? The fact that he was dead? Sansa just didn’t know.

“Do you still want me here?” Margaery asked, “I could go get a hotel room if you want to talk to your family alone.” Sansa shook her head frantically. 

“You’re not leaving,” Sansa said, “you’re not saving my life then getting booted out of my parents’ house.” Sansa could barely get words out right now. She couldn’t imagine trying to explain all of this to her family without any help.

“She _saved your life_?” her mother asked, her voice getting caught up in her throat. 

“Yeah,” Sansa said, “I have uh, I have a lot to tell you.” 

Sansa’s parents got them food, which they desperately needed, and then Sansa and Margaery told them the whole story. 

Sansa was worried that they might blame her, that she’d have to get up and leave with Margaery and figure out everything else for herself- they didn’t. They didn’t blame her at all. They apologized for letting her get married so young, and not objecting stronger, and letting her isolate herself. They apologized for not coming to see her in King’s Landing and figuring out that things were amiss even more than they suspected. Her mom even apologized for not being able to be Sansa’s legal council as the city watch in King’s Landing was questioning them. Her father said that it was his fault for not trying to get Robert to rein the boy in more. He was going to call his friend in the morning, but none of them knew how a call like that would go.

Sansa cried, and she hugged her parents, and she cried some more. They thanked Margaery for helping her get out of that situation, and then eventually, they both had to go back to work. They left Sansa and Margaery alone in the house and Sansa gave her the grand tour. Her parents still had all her paintings hanging up in the same spots in the house. It was almost like she’d never left. 

Then, when the boys came home for dinner that night, they got to meet Margaery. Their parents explained a little about how Sansa and Margaery came to be there, though they weren’t heavy on the details. They just said that Joffrey had been hurting Sansa for a long time, so when she Margaery were trying to leave and he tried to hurt them, Margaery killed him in self-defense. It wasn’t the most pleasant conversation that Sansa had ever had, but it was necessary. They’d see it on the news soon enough. Besides, Bran was a senior in high school and Rickon was thirteen. They could both handle it. Apparently, Rickon was three seasons deep in _Criminal Minds _right now. Hearing about a little self-defense killing didn’t even phase him.

“What are your plans now?” her mother asked. 

“I’m planning to form a new branch of my grandmother’s company here in Winterfell. Hopefully I’ll find an apartment in the next few days.”  
  
“You can stay with us in the meantime,” her father said. 

“Sansa,” her mother asked, “do you know what you want to do?” 

“I think that I want to stay here with you for a while, if that’s alright. I think that Margaery and I should date a little longer before we live together.” Sansa cared deeply for Margaery, but their relationship had been a whirlwind. Even though Sansa already loved her, she still barely knew her. It was better to move a little slower than to speed into something this serious.

“I understand,” Margaery said, “I think it would be good for you to have some time living with your family again.”  
  
“You could live with us forever if you wanted,” her mother said. 

“Well, maybe not _forever,_” Rickon said, “I think I would judge you if you move out after I do.” That prompted a laugh from the whole table. It felt like old times, and Sansa couldn’t wait to see the rest of her family again. Hopefully Robb would be able to get off work some time tomorrow to come see her, and hopefully Arya could come home this weekend. It was only an hour drive from Torrhen’s Square where her college was, after all. Then hopefully Jon would come soon from beyond the Wall, and Uncle Benjen. Maybe Uncle Brandon and Aunt Barbrey would be up from Barrowtown, and even her family in the Riverlands. She found that she missed everyone so fiercely, now that she had a taste of seeing her family again. She missed her family, every single member of it. She was so glad to finally be home. 

She and Margaery got settled into her childhood bedroom. Margaery admired the paintings, asked about her thought process behind each one, and they talked about their childhoods into the night. They talked about going to sept on Sundays, and Sansa told Margaery about her father’s old gods and how cut off she’d felt from them in King’s Landing. She believed in both, but it was far harder to keep both so far from home. Margaery had looked thoughtful and said that she’d never thought about it before. They talked about family traditions and hopes and dreams long into the night, until they both finally fell asleep.

* * *

The next day, Sansa’s mother introduced them to a friend of hers who was a realtor and they started searching for an apartment for Margaery. They met Robb for lunch and caught him up on everything. Robb said he was so happy that she was happy now. It was hard not to notice how unhappy _Robb_ was. It had been a little over six months since Theon broke off their engagement and he wasn’t anywhere near over it. Apparently, Theon had packed it up and moved to _Dreadtown _afterwards and no one had heard from him since, not even his sister.

Arya and Jon both came that weekend to smother her. Jon told her about his adventures beyond the Wall and Arya told her all about vet school and how she might or might not be dating someone. They both seemed to like Margaery, if only because she had gotten her away from Joffrey and she was finally _home. _

Within the next week, Margaery found an apartment and they got it mostly furnished. Sansa spent the night there and then she spent the next night back home. It was harder when she got home and tried to spend the night alone. She kept closing her eyes and thinking that she’d wake up back in her bed in King’s Landing. 

It hadn’t been like that before with Margaery’s soft hands wrapped around her stomach. She always remembered she was in her own bed because of how different Margaery’s touch was to Joffrey’s. Margaery held her softly, like something precious. Joffrey always held her as tightly as a dog would hold a chew toy in its mouth.

Sansa turned the lights on and stared at the paintings of King’s Landing on the wall. She ripped each of them off the wall and threw them into the trash where they belonged.

She could paint something better now, something beautiful. Maybe she couldn’t erase the memories of King’s Landing, but she could get a new set of art supplies and paint herself a better future. 

Sansa sat up in bed for the rest of the night, strategizing her newest paintings. She decided which colors she would need, which brushes, which types and sizes of canvases. As soon as the morning came around, she walked over to the store and grabbed the supplies that she wanted. 

She got home and started painting at the kitchen table. She started with a painting of her house in King’s Landing burning to the ground. Her mom seemed concerned by her choice of topic, but she didn’t say anything. Margaery dragged her away from her work to take her to dinner and to see a comedy about a girl who could see ghosts but only ghosts who died in dumb ways. 

When she got home that night, she holed herself up in the basement living room and finished up her painting of King’s Landing burning. She felt better after she finished it. She knew that she shouldn’t, as she could have well died from fire in King’s Landing, but there’s something cleansing about thinking about the whole damn city that caused her so much misery going up in flames and never looking back.

The morning after, Sansa was ready to start the next painting that she had in her mind, but her mother had her gather up her art supplies.

“We’re going on a field trip,” she said, leading Sansa out to her old minivan. Sansa sat down in the passenger’s seat and glanced at the back seats. She could still see the “crayon mural” that she and Arya had made one unusually hot summer day by leaving the crayons splayed out on the floor on purpose. They had done an art project at daycare that week with melted crayons, and Sansa, budding artist that she always was, was excited to see how it would look in her mother’s car. Her mother had been furious, but she’d never gotten rid of it either. She was a sentimental woman that way.

“Where are we going?” Sansa finally asked. Sansa noticed that they were taking the route that her mother always took to her office. Sansa thought they could be going over there to paint, but then she dismissed the thought. There was no way that her mother had kept that art studio in the back up for all these years after Sansa moved away. When they pulled up the office, Sansa sent her mother a look.

“Do you really want me painting in your office?”

“I want you painting in your studio,” her mother said firmly.

“Wait, really?” she asked incredulously. She couldn’t believe that her mother had kept it up after all those years. She could have rented it out or used it for additional storage for the family. There must have been a better use for that space than as a shrine for her daughter who never even called.

“Really,” her mother said, turning the key and turning off the car. Sansa reached over from the passengers’ side to give her a hug. 

“I love you so much,” Sansa said. Her mother smiled at her.

“I thought that you could turn it into a small business, if you’d like,” her mother suggested, “you could teach classes here for children and teenagers. Maybe even adults. Whoever wants to learn to paint from a master.” Sansa thought that she would like that, actually. She would like to inspire the love of painting in others. She could even put on classes for trauma victims, to help them work through their pain through painting like she has. 

“Thank you, mom,” Sansa said, “I think that might be lovely.”  
  
“I also, um,” her mother said, “I brought some paperwork that you might like. You don’t have to sign any of it if you don’t want to, but I thought that you might want it.” Sansa followed her mother into her office building. They passed by the door to Sansa’s painting room and then over to the door to her mother’s office space. Her mother opened the door, and they both walked inside. Her mother’s desk was as clean as always, all files placed in their proper places in her filing cabinets. There were only three loose papers lying on the desk beside a picture of all the kids that mom and dad had insisted on before Robb and Jon had gone off to college. 

“Those are the papers,” her mother said, “if you want them, at least.” Sansa picked them up. The first had “PETITION FOR LEGAL CHANGE OF NAME” emblazoned across the top. Sansa felt tears prickling at her eyelashes. 

“I, well,” her mother said, “I didn’t want to _presume, _but I couldn’t imagine that you’d want to stay Sansa Baratheon forever.” 

“I don’t. I want to be Sansa Stark again,” she said. Her mother smiled widely. 

“That’s good, then. I know exactly how to do that,” her mother grinned at her, “these sorts of things are why I got my law degree, after all.” Sansa flipped through the papers for a while, not really understanding all the legal jargon but knowing the important part: she was going to change her name back. She was going to be Sansa Stark again.

“I have some errands that I need to run,” her mother said after a while, “would you like to come with me, or would you like to stay here and paint?”

“I think I’ll stay. I’ll have Margaery pick me up,” Sansa said, “spend the night with her.” Her mother nodded. 

“Just let me know when you get there safe,” she said, “I love you.”  
  
“Love you too, mom,” she said. Her mother nodded, and then she left Sansa and locked the door behind her. Sansa took her supplies back to her old art studio, which her mother had left untouched just as she’d said. It was just the same as back when Sansa would spend hours here avoiding her family and painting Joffrey as so many different knights it made her head spin. 

Sansa sighed. She pushed the thoughts of past mistakes to the back of her mind, and placed her new canvas on her easel and poured out the paints that she needed. She painted her and Margaery holding hands, curled together on the bench in front of the statue of Sansa I. She painted a crown of winter and yellow roses on the statue of the Queen in the North. Sansa loved the way that it turned out. It was soft and symbolic, but mainly it was just of Sansa and Margaery being in love. No overly idealized images. Perhaps Margaery _was _her knight in shining armor, but Sansa didn’t need to think of her that way. She knew Margaery’s heart, and she knew that she loved it.

They’d need to go to Stark Park downtown someday and curl up in front of the statue for real. Sansa could show her every interesting thing that they could find and help Margaery get to know the city that she always resented. Maybe they could come to love it for real together.

Sansa called Margaery at ten that night to ask if she’d come pick her up. Her girlfriend got there soon enough, and Sansa showed told her about the name change and showed her the painting. There was a soft look in her eyes as she looked it over.

“See,” she said, pointing to the statue, “I _knew_ you didn’t want to be a Baratheon. Sansa Stark. It sounds much better, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Sansa said. She didn’t understand how she ever wanted to be something other than what she was.

“You really have the most Northern name, don’t you?” Margaery grinned, pointing to the statue in her painting, “named after the Queen in the North herself. How could you beat that?” Some would say that her brother’s name would, because Robb Stark started the second Stark dynasty and Sansa merely upheld it. She doubted that Margaery would buy into that line of thinking.

“I didn’t _feel_ very Northern back in King’s Landing,” Sansa said.

“That was partially because you couldn’t get to a heart tree, right?” Sansa wasn’t sure that was the heart of it, but she thought that it was a factor. Lots of Northern kids who moved South never felt connected to the old gods again simply because they couldn’t visit them.

“My grandmother gave me leave to found a branch here in the North, hoping that I’d do something new and interesting that would drive the company forward. Well, I think I’ve got an idea.”

“What is it?”

“We work with agriculture- plant breeding, GMOs, stuff like that. What if we could figure out a way to breed weirwoods again? Then we could repopulate all the Godswoods in Westeros. We could even start new ones.” Sansa felt a little shocked by that.

“But they aren’t your gods,” Sansa said, “why would you care.”

“Well for one, they’re _your_ gods. It would be nice if you never had to feel so cut off from them again.” Then Margaery shrugged.

“And there’s a lot of people who _do_ hold to the old gods who want to move. If they could bring a little piece of home with them, then I think it would help a lot. We could make money and help people preserve their cultures. It’s a win-win.” Arya had always said that she would like to study a semester or two somewhere in Essos, but that she wasn’t sure because that she’d be able to because she’d miss home so much and wouldn’t even be able to pray properly. While this wouldn’t solve that problem for kids Arya’s age, it would help some kids somewhere down the line. It was so thoughtful and innovative.

“Margaery, you’re a genius,” Sansa said, looking at Margaery with awe. Margaery smiled.

“Not a genius, just an innovative thinker. What good would I be if I didn’t have creative ideas for my own girlfriend?”

“You’re the best girlfriend on the entire planet,” Sansa said, “you _have_ to be.” Margaery grinned. She didn’t look over from the road, but Sansa could tell that her eyes were crinkling along with it.

“You’re right. I do have to be. If I were anything less, I might lose the _actual_ best girlfriend on the planet.” Sansa swatted her hand, and they got into a playful fight about who was the _real _best.

“Okay,” Margaery said after about a minute of back and forth, “you win. I’m the best girlfriend. Can we go get food or something now? I’m _starving.” _It didn’t take any more convincing than that. They went out to Margaery’s car, locking the door behind them, and then they drove over to their favorite drive through. They got a large order of fries, some chicken nuggets, and two chocolate shakes. Then they drove away and placed the food onto the cupholders in the middle, each of them cradling their shake in between their thighs. Sansa took a long sip of her own chocolate shake and then stole a fry directly out of Margaery’s hand. They start laughing, and in that moment Sansa realizes how terribly easy it is to be with Margaery.

With Joffrey, she was always walking on eggshells, thinking about what behaviors would set him off and which behaviors would make him happy. With Margaery, though, she has space to just be.

Right now, though, they’re just together, listening to pop music and smiling and laughing, plopping lukewarm fries into chocolate shakes and laughing. Now Sansa has a family who loves her, a name change on the horizon, a possible career, a love for painting re-ignited, and a woman she loves sitting beside her, singing badly to shitty pop songs. 

Margaery isn’t perfect. She isn’t truly a “knight in shining armor” the way that Sansa used to think that Joffrey was, but Sansa thinks that she has a little room to romanticize her now. She knows her, and she knows her heart. They can be themselves around each other, and they love each other not despite it, but because of it. Sansa thinks that her next painting will be of she and Margaery sitting in this car, French fry crowns on their heads, sipping from their milkshakes and sending each other loving looks.

She doesn’t think there’s anything more beautiful than that in the whole world: two girls in love. What a moment of inspiration.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so. i'm kind of planning on expanding this verse? i most certainly HAVE to write a funny little fic where margaery realizes that sansa looks just like the actress sophie turner, who just married THE joe florian. and, if you didn't pick up on it, i have some, uh, plans for theon and some ideas for "sansa runs a trauma painting group". i also very very much love barbrey ryswell dustin and have some interesting ideas for her in this verse so i might write them. let me know if any of those ideas strike your fancy <3


End file.
